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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap, Copyright No. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




FULL LIFE 

FOR 

EMPTY MEN 



BY 

y 

REV. W. DEWITT LUKENS 



BOSTON 
JAMES H. EARLE, Publisher 

178 WASHINGTON STREET 
1900 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

l Ibrary of CesgEi«% 
0-ffl-s of thy 

FEB 2 3 1900 

Agister of Copyright* 



54388 



Copyright, 1899 
By W. Dewitt Lukens 

All Rights Reserved 



8S00ND COPY, 

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dfoarg ©aroemec Xufcens 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

CHAPTER I. 

Cause of Emptiness. 

Sin — Guilt of Sin — Sins — Disharmony — Sin is Transgression — 
Second, Law of Love — Moralist and Humanitarian — Sin is 
Failure to do Good— Sin is Unbelief — Why is Unbelief Sin— 
What an Unbeliever Believes. 

CHAPTER II. 

How to See Emptiness. 

Goodness and Method — Paul — Job — Jacob — Isaiah — Peter — 
Eight Reasons — The Past — The Present — The Future — Con- 
science — Conviction by the Spirit. 

CHAPTER III. 

How to Get Rid of Emptiness. 

Repentance — Things Men Say — Things Men Do — Inventions — 
The Easiest Method— The Best Method— God's Way— The 
Source of Difficulty — Turning the Direction, Obedience, 
Will, Work— Paying a Debt— In Hell— God's Thought. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Cause of Fulness. 

The Gospel — Safety — Plan — Power — Belief — Mystery — Utility — 
Much More — Law — Evolution —Morality — Reforms — Wis- 
dom — Crises — Achievement — Victory — Christ. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

What is Fulness. 

Life — Hapginess — Satisfaction — Capacity for Life — Complete- 
ness — Born Again — Fruit — Growing Power — Love. 

CHAPTER VI. 

How to Get Fulness. 

Cannot Believe our Senses — Belief Outside of Sense — Influence 
Without Contact — Belief is Reception — Belief is Threefold — 
Belief is Action. 

CHAPTER VII. 

How to Know that You Have Full Life. 

Humility — Finding God's Will — How to get Eyes — How to get 
Health — How to get Happiness — How to keep Safe — Diso- 
bedience — The Test — Morality — Grace to Obey. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

How to keep Full Life. 

Christ in You — The Bible and Christ — Elijah's Test — Christian 
Graces — Proof of God's Love — God's Reckoning. 

CHAPTER IX. 

How Full Life is Developed. 

Full Life — Life from Death — Failure to Grow — Grace — Works — 
Dead Works. 

CHAPTER X. 

How is Full Life to be Used. 

Doing Good — Pleasing God — Living to God's Glory — Revealing 
God — God Glorifies Us. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During several years of Christian service it has 
become more and more painfully evident that 
though nearly all persons in Christian lands were 
generally familiar with the Christian religion, yet 
there were very few Christians who could intelli- 
gently tell a fellow-being how to become a Chris- 
tian. Few sinners know how to help themselves 
in reaching the kingdom, through ignorance of 
just how in particular to become a Christian. 
Where to begin and what to do at each succeed- 
ing point they knew not, though from infancy they 
were familiar, in general, with Christianity. Then, 
further, when the Christian life was begun, how to 
sustain and develop it was a continuation of the 
same problem. This ignorance was recognized 
also by a multitude of non-professors in their fre- 
quent excuse, " I cannot live it." Both in the 
pastoral and evangelistic work I have been forced 
to emphasize the particular along these lines. 
This is a prayerful attempt to set forth in plain 
form, How to become a Christian, and, How to 
stay a Christian ; especially for use m my own 
work. It is not a theological treatise in that there 
is an attempt made to set forth a divine order in 
dogmatic form, of God's supernatural grace in 
regeneration and sanctification. The clock can- 



8 INTR OD UC TION. 



not tick out Christian experience for each suc- 
ceeding hour, or brains understand the divine. 
An attempt is made to show the way to satisfac- 
tion, full life, for hungry and thirsty, — empty 
men. A view of the plan of saving grace with the 
emphasis on the human side. A word, however, 
concerning the source of salvation by way of 
introduction. 

We would not lose sight of the ground of our 
salvation found in Jesus Christ alone. We would 
not needlessly trouble the mind about questions of 
sin and repentance, regeneration and sanctification. 
So now a word which must indeed be the first 
word, that concerning the salvation provided for 
us in Christ. This must be recognized by the 
sinner before true repentance is possible. A man 
must guard against making " works of righteous- 
ness which he can do " out of feelings about sin 
and repentance and even his professed belief, so 
subtle are the deceptions of Satan in regard to 
salvation in Christ. God saves through a look of 
faith at the uplifted Christ (John 3 : 14, 15). We 
cannot be saved by looking at our own sins, nor 
by looking at the Bible, nor by reasoning about 
the relationship between sin and God. 

There is life for a look at the crucified one, 
There is life at this moment for thee. 

A criticising skeptic came to one of God's be- 
lieving saints and asked, " What is the gospel you 
believe, and how do you believe it? " She replied, 
" God is satisfied with the work of His Son — this 
is the gospel I believe and I am satisfied with it — 
this is how I believe it." Another has given this 



INTRODUCTION. 



explanation of it, " There is a great difference 
between your religion and mine ; yours consists 
of two letters, D-O, and mine consists of four, 
D-O-N-E. 

Jesus said upon the cross, " It is finished." 
We may ask what is finished? Jesus answers in 
John 17: 4, "I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do." How did He view this 
work? We get His answer in John 4: 34, " My 
meat is to do the work of Him that sent me, and 
to finish His work." As Jesus has finished His 
work and God has accepted it, we may for our- 
selves wisely ask the question of John 6 : 28, 
"What shall we do that we might work the 
works of God." His answer comes direct. Jesus 
answered and said unto them, " This is the work 
of God, that ye believe on Him whom he hath 
sent." Then we read the 47th verse as the result 
of such belief: "All that the Father giveth Me 
shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I 
will in nowise cast out." Our faith links us with 
the completed work of Jesus and His work be- 
comes ours. Then according to Colossians 2 : 
10, " Ye are complete in Him." 

" You must beware of resting your peace on 
your feelings, convictions, tears, repentance, 
prayers, duties, or resolutions. You must begin 
with receiving Christ, and not make that the ter- 
mination of a course of fancied preparation. 
... . You are as welcome to Christ now as you 
ever will be. Wait not for deeper conviction of 
sin, for why should you prefer conviction to Christ? 
Our peace with God, our forgiveness, our recon- 
ciliation flow wholly from the sin-atoning sacrifice 



I O INTR ODUC TION. 



of Jesus." Here we have the ground of our salva- 
tion in Christ. The following pages mean to set 
forth in somewhat of order man's part in and 
man's recognition of the plan and purpose of sal- 
vation. Without the atoning sacrifice of Christ 
none of it is possible to man. He cannot see sin 
apart from grace, neither can he repent, believe, 
or obey apart from the Spirit's operation in his 
life. The following pages are true to man because 
of what Christ has done for every lost man, and 
because of what the Spirit is now doing in the life 
of every lost man. 



I. 

THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 

Sin robs a man of life, — physical, moral, 
Sin. spiritual. While sin abounds there is no 

complete or full living. Christ came that we 
might have life and that we might have it abund- 
antly. Sin has emptied the human race of its 
inheritance from Eden onward. Now we have the 
Last Adam whose mission provides for the filling 
of our emptiness. Since Adam no man has fully 
lived or lived full as God intended except in 
Christ. Half or partial living is the universal ex- 
perience. Half alive because of the absence of 
God. Dead in sins. Of the prodigal his father 
said, " This my son was dead." 

The distinction between the number of 

GUILT sins committed and the guilt of sin is im- 

OF portant, but largely unrecognized. See 

Sin. yonder beautiful and accomplished young 

woman? With gay, light, and smiling 

presence she passes her admirers. From her 

nature this morning she wove into the day a 

thread of meanness. A mean thought showed 

itself in a mean act expressive of her character. 



12 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

See yonder dusky figure, with scowling mien? 
He is just from the murderer's deed. He is 
just risen from the pit, fiendish. The one be- 
fore men, is a devil, the other, a good woman. 
In both God sees a bad nature. A nature that 
is capable of a mean act is capable of sin, sin is 
capable of making its possessor a demon. So 
that he who offends in one point is guilty of all, 
because the nature that is capable of one white, 
airy, summer sin, is capable of doing way-down, 
deep, zero sins. The picnic sins come from the 
same source as the pit sins, so are alike sinful, 
not as to the number committed, but as to the 
quality. Poison is poison, even though it be in 
ever so small a quantity. Healthfulness does not 
arise from diminutive portions of disease, but from 
fulness of life. One little unthinking error is not 
any more beautiful in God's sight than a thousand 
heinous crimes. For God cannot look upon sin — 
SIN, with one degree of allowance. He asks, " Is 
it sin? " Not how much or how many sins. 

This does # not invalidate a consideration of 
SlNS. particular sins, which is often necessary. 

Many will admit that they are sinners but 
will not allow the finger placed upon any particu- 
lar sins. The story is told of a man who got 
drunk, and sought pardon and peace, but was 
unsuccessful. His minister urged him to pray 
again and so they knelt together. The man 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 1 3 

prayed, " O God, thou knowest thy servant in a 
moment of unwatchfulness was overtaken by a 
sin." 

" Nonsense ! " said the minister; " tell the Lord 
you got drunk." 

The man could not bring himself up to that, 
and so began again : " O Lord, thou knowest thy 
servant, in his weakness and frailty, was overtaken 
by a besetting sin." 

" Nonsense ! tell the Lord you got drunk." 

At last the poor fellow said : " O God, have 
mercy on me ; I got drunk." 

In answer to that prayer the man received for- 
giveness and peace. In speaking of sin as guilt 
before God we would not minimize the great 
importance of dealing with particular sins and say- 
ing, Thou art the man guilty of this particular sin. 
Erroneous opinions are those out 
DISHARMONY. of harmony with right thinking. 
Insanity is action out of harmony 
with right thinking. Drunkenness is caused by ap- 
petite out of harmony with the needs of a physical 
man. The shoe and the foot must fit. A hat too 
large covers the ears, making the man look ridi- 
culous. Sin is that which does not correspond to 
the need and happiness of the physical, moral, and 
spiritual nature. A man out of harmony with his 
own nature would be out of harmony with the 
nature in whose likeness' he was created. Sin is 



1 4 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

lack of correspondence with God. Being what 
God is not. Doing what God does not do. 

An ajfple tree that does not bear apples defeats 
the purpose of its planting and growing. So a 
man who does not love God. A house in which 
no one lives is not meeting the purpose for which 
it was built. So a man in whom God does not 
dwell. A grocery store that does not keep coffee, 
sugar, soap, is only half a store, for those are 
staple groceries. Spirituality is a staple in the 
man whom God made. A man who pays no re- 
gard to the keeping of his body is a suicide. One 
who disregards morals is a criminal. One who 
pays no regard to keeping spirituality is a sinner. 
These only half live, for man is physical, moral, 
spiritual. If the body lacks food, if the heart lacks 
morals, if the spirit lacks Christ's gospel, £he man 
is only half supplied, and only half lives. Food 
for the body, morals for the man, and Christianity 
for the spirit. Neglect feeding either with its suit- 
able food and you have death. Sin is what hurts 
us. If a thing is harmless to all parts of our 
nature it is not sinful. All sin injures. God's 
laws are those regulations which he knows will 
keep us in harmony with the nature he has given 
us, and so with his own nature. 

Being in sin is possessing a nature out of accord 
with God's nature. Sinning is obeying the dic- 
tates of this corrupt nature. " I am carnal sold 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 1 5 

under sin." That is, he obeys, goes according to 
his flesh nature. He, is living the flesh life which 
has the control over him. To be ruled by the 
flesh life is sin. An earthly man, though moral, is 
living in a condition of sin, because only following 
his feeling, impulses, and reason. His very acts of 
morality may be sin, for an evil tree cannot pro- 
duce good fruit. He may be even priding himself 
that he lacks the spirituality, without which, God 
says, there is none good, no not one, and without 
which no man shall see the kingdom of heaven. 
A man might so live as to commit no sin against 
his body or his moral nature, yet be a grievous 
sinner, because he neglects spirituality. A perfect 
man is right with himself, his neighbor, his God ; 
bodily, morally, spiritually. Notice for illustration 
the young ruler and Paul before conversion. 

In his first epistle, 5:19, 

SlN is John says, " The whole 

Transgression, world lieth in wickedness." All 

will admit that the world is 
wicked. But the devil's delusion is couched thus: 
The world is bad and needs reforming, but I per- 
sonally am fairly good. They regard only the 
first Mosaic definition of sin, law-breaking, "Sin is 
the transgression of the law." Civil and social 
crimes the law of the country deals with largely. 
Sheriffs, prisons, and the gallows regulate their 
transgression. Others of them, such as lying and 



1 6 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

various forms of dishonesty, the conscience con- 
victs of in civilized countries. Moral men do not 
break these according to their interpretations of 
them, and therefore conclude that their lives must 
be acceptable in God's sight. But Jesus speaks a 
forgotten commandment in Matthew 22 : 34 and 
following. " Now the Pharisees hearing that He 
silenced the Sadducees, were brought together 
with one accord ; and one from among them 
proposed a question, tempting Him : Teacher, 
which commandment is great in the law? And 
He said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God, with the whole of thy heart, with the whole 
of thy soul, and with the whole of thy mind." This 
is the great and first commandment. Mark adds 
to this, with the whole of thy might. Luke adds, 
with the whole of thy intention. So we have as 
the great and first commandment the duty to love 
God with the whole of our heart, soul, mind, 
might, and intention. Love God with the total 
being. This is a commandment. Who is guilty 
of breaking it? Loving God in any less degree 
than this language conveys is breaking the first 
commandment. Men whose consciences are not 
quickened make the sad blunder of thinking that 
all that God requires is that they shall not break 
the ten commandments. He requires this and 
much more, that men shall love him with the 
entire being. This is not a question of choice 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 



17 



but the first and greatest commandment. Failure 
to so love God is the first and greatest sin. 
Surely all have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God. Failure to love God leaves us 
open to the charge of breaking all the command- 
ments. In Malachi's day this failure was con- 
sidered robbery. "Will a man rob God? Yet ye 
have robbed me." The people ask as in surprise, 
"Wherein have we robbed thee?" They are 
thinking of the external evidences of love to God, 
but God's burden about them is seen in the 
words, " I have loved you saith the Lord." Their 
chief robbery was in not returning God's love to 
him. Failure to love God all through the 
prophets, is recognized as spiritual adultery. 
Jesus indicates that failure on the part of the 
Pharisees to love him breaks their relationship to 
God, and makes liars and children of the devil. 
" If I should say I know him not I would be a 
liar like unto you." "Ye are of your father, 
the devil." How astounding this language con- 
cerning a people whose lives were spent in pro- 
fessed law-keeping. Surely an impressive lesson 
for every moralist. These men were murderers^ 
" Which of the prophets have your fathers not 
killed ? " Saul was a murderer of Christians, and 
was authorized by these men to do his deeds of 
slaughter ; yet he thought he was doing the will 
of God, and keeping strictly, better than others, 



1 8 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

the commandments of God. Failure to love God 
crucified Christ. Of those who knew most about 
the law Jesus says, " Ye cannot hear my word." 
The whole decalogue is broken when the first and 
greatest commandment is broken, love to God, as 
when the keystone falls from the arch. 

Following the first great law is 

Second, Law the second, namely, " Thou shalt 

OF Love. love thy neighbor as thyself." 

Love to God is first, and love to 
humanity is second. They that love God keep 
his commandments. His first commandment is 
love to himself. When a man is seen showing 
love to humanity before love to God, we know he 
is in error. His benevolence is sin. A religion 
of " love to my neighbor" is no better than any 
other natural religion. Though the Bible is 
claimed as its source does not alter its real merit. 
This is an angel of light which deceives many. 
Satan, in quoting scripture to these people, is more 
successful than he was with Christ. To love your 
neighbor before you love your God is sin. More- 
over, your professed love to your neighbor is spu- 
rious if you do not love God first. There is no 
true passion of love but from God, and if you have 
it you will first keep his commandments. 

A moralist and humanitarian may as such re- 
ceive their reward for the lives they live and the 
love they show to their fellow creatures, but as 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 1 9 

such only they cannot enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. But a man who truly loves God cannot 
help but be moral and show practical love to. his 

neighbor. Education and cir- 

MORALIST AND cumstances make men moral and 

Humanitarian, brotherly, but those forces will 

not regenerate the soul. There 
is much confounding of morality and Christianity, 
and so thinking the two are one. They are as dif- 
ferent as any separate conditions can well be. The 
one person is a decent member of society ; the 
other a spiritually regenerated person, a member 
of the invisible kingdom of God. The one keeps 
men out of an earthly jail, the other out of a spir- 
itual hell, and more, admits him into the everlast- 
ing home and presence of God. 

In James 4 : 17 we read, " There- 

SlN IS FAILURE fore to him that knoweth to 

TO DO GOOD. do good and doeth it not, to 

him it is sin." Another transla- 
tion is: " To one therefore who knows how to be 
doing a noble thing and is not doing it, a sin to 
him it is." The unthinking say that they are not 
sinners when they find themselves free from com- 
mitting crimes ; but failure to do good is sin. A 
question of what good was there which I could 
have done and which I failed to do ; or what no- 
ble thing. It goes beyond the merely good doing 
and reaches into the realm of the heroic. Failure 



20 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 



to act noble is sin. Failure to do our best and act 
the true hero is sin. To do anything less than we 
might is sin. Good omitted is sin committed. 
The five foolish virgins were shut out for what 
they failed to do, and especially for what they 
failed to do on time. They did the right thing, 
but they did it too late. The man with the one 
talent was dealt with for not using that one talent. 
He let it lie hidden, and so unimproved. The 
wedding guest came, but he was cast out for fail- 
ure to have put on the provided garment. The 
law of the judgment of nations is, " Inasmuch as 
ye did it not unto one of the least of these." In 
making superficial definitions, men say sin is only 
the absence of holiness, just as cold is the absence 
of heat, and darkness the absence of light; but 
when that absence is God's absence, and so of 
holiness, it becomes the depth of human misery on 
earth, and hell in the coming dispensation. Even 
such negative definition is appalling. 

Our age prides itself upon its knowledge and 
enlightenment, and pleads its advancement as com- 
mendatory in God' s sight. This, however, is a 
cause for condemnation. Knowledge and ability 
only add cursing to the disobedient, ''And that 
servant who got to know the will of his lord, and 
neither prepared nor wrought with regard to his 
will shall be beaten much ; but he who did not get 
to know, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 21 

beaten little." So the greater condemnation of the 
gospel enlightened. " Had I not come and spoken 
to them, they had not had sin ; but now they have 
no excuse for their sin." Their knowledge leaves 
them "without excuse." Jesus said unto them, 
" If blind ye had been ye had not, in that case, had 
sin ; but now ye say, We see ; — your sin remains." 
Because they are not heathen they shall receive 
the greater condemnation ; their enlightened con- 
dition adding to their condemnation. They knew 
how to act nobly, but would not. 

In Romans 14:23 we see that "What- 

SlN IS soever is not of faith is sin." In 

UNBELIEF. Eden man cut himself off from 

God and started an independent life, 
according to the flesh and the world. Hu- 
manity has been living that life ever since. The 
plan of the gospel in Christ is to bring men into a 
life of union again with God. Living the self-life, 
whic*h is a walk by sight, in contrast to a walk by 
faith, is sin. It is independence of God, self-suffi- 
ciency, doing one's own will, following human 
opinion and reason, following a self-made plan of 
life, living a self-made character. It is a life apart 
from faith. " Now everything that is not of faith 
is sin." 

Jesus says concerning the mission of the Holy 
Spirit after his own departure, " And coming he 
will convict the world of sin, — of sin indeed, 



22 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

because they are not putting faith in me." So 
we have it very clearly set forth that unbelief is 
sin. We can readily see the superficial thinking 
of our age when they see sin to be only the actual 
breaking of one of the civil laws of the land, such 
as stealing, murder, and the like. In John 3:18, 
we have the translation, " He who puts faith in 
him is not to be judged, but he who puts not 
faith, already has been judged, because he has not 
put faith in the name of the only begotten Son of 
God." The man of unbelief has passed before 
the Judge and been charged with and condemned 
for the crime of Calvary. Unbelief crucified Jesus. 
Each unbeliever is guilty of the shed blood of 
Christ. The righteousness of Christ is given to 
each believer. 

In 1 John 5 : 10, we read, " He that believeth 
not God hath made him a liar," " because he 
believeth not the record that God gave of his 
Son." Unbelief is no slight matter, as it deter- 
mines God to be false. " He that has not faith in 
God, false has made him." If unbelief concerning 
the love of God in Christ to them, makes them 
proclaim God false, and gives him the lie, what 
will they not do concerning lesser relationships 
to the Deity? So unbelievers are placed in the 
frightful category, " but as for the timid and unbe- 
lieving and abominable and murderers and forni- 
nicators and sorcerers and idolaters, and all the 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 23 

false, their part is in the lake that burns with fire 
and brimstone; which is the second death." If 
in human experience birds of a feather flock 
together, and if God who knows the hearts of all 
men places unbelievers in the same list as to qual- 
ity with murder and idolatry, then surely it is a 
heinous sin. Says Luther, "This white devil 
which urges man to commit spiritual sins is far 
more dangerous than the black devil, which only 
tempts them to commit fleshly sins, which the 
world acknowledges to be sins." 

But why is unbelief a sin of such 

Why IS deep dye ? We have seen from Scrip- 

UNBELIEF ture that it sets God down as false. 

SlN? It is wilfully blind to the teachings of 

history, to these nineteen hundred 
years of historical evidences showing the truthful- 
ness of the gospel. Blind in personal experience 
and observation, failing to recognize that the 
present day civilization comes from Christianity* 
It fails to see God's purpose as revealed in the 
Old and New Testaments, which is to bring the 
unbeliever to faith. It takes upon itself to do in 
a few years by works of self-righteousness what 
God has taken centuries to do. To make eternal 
reconciliation to God by prayers and resolutions 
and gifts. Counting their own deeds of equal value 
with the atonement of Christ, they set themselves 
up as being equal to Christ in good works. It is 



24 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

practically claiming sinlessness of life. Unbelief 
charges God with murdering Christ unnecessarily. 
They can be saved by their own works, and so 
of what value and to what purpose was it for 
God to sacrifice his Son? They say to God, You 
need not have gone to the trouble from Abel 
onward to shed blood, we can be saved by our 
own devices without shedding of blood. You are 
a bloody, murderous God. God's greatest work 
is the redemption of man, and they claim that 
they can do it in shorter time and with much less 
effort and cost than God can. They set them- 
selves up above all that is called God, or that is 
worshiped as God. . The utter blindness of unbe- 
lief ! The tremendous deceptions that men will 
allow Satan to play upon them ! Satan originally 
thought to ascend above God and rebelled.; now 
he deceives men into unbelief, and brings them 
into the same state of rebellion with himself. 
Unbelief put Christ upon the cross and it would 
take God from his throne. 

What does an unbeliever believe? 

What an It cannot be Christ or he would 
UNBELIEVER believe Christ wrio is the truth. Of 

BELIEVES. him it is said, " His word ye have 

within you abiding, because whom 

he sent, in him- ye are not believing." It must be 

the opposite from the truth they are believing. 

If they are not believing Christ, they must be 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 25 

believing some other power. Jesus says to unbe- 
lievers, " Ye are of your father, the adversary; 
and the covetings of your father ye wish to be 
doing. He was a man-killer from the beginning ; 
and in the truth does not stand, because there is 
no truth in him. Whensoever he may be speak- 
ing falsehood, of his own he is speaking, because 
false he is, and the father of it." God and truth 
go together, and if a man does not believe them, 
whom does he believe? He must believe some 
one and some thing. There is no other beside 
God but Satan with his lie. An unbeliever must 
surely believe the devil and his lie. This was 
Adam's choice in the garden. There is nothing 
else that he can accept if he denies God and the 
truth. * 



26 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 



II. 

HOW TO SEE EMPTINESS. 

Men see the lowest when their gaze 

GOODNESS is upon the highest object. Nothing 

AND so effectively reveals the depth of 

METHOD. human depravity as a view of God. 

The desire is commendable to ap- 
pear, and to be, good. The end in view is noble. 
God sanctions it. Man aspires to it. But why 
should there be a difference in the method 4 of 
attainment, as set forth by God in contrast to that 
mostly practised by humanity? Herein the per- 
versity of human nature. Herein the vantage 
ground of devil deception. Suppose a man, as he 
expresses it, " feels all right." He does not rec- 
ognize or aspire to anything better than he has. 
Then we repeat to him the language of Christ in 
similar conditions: " I am come to seek and to 
save that which was lost. They that are whole 
have no. need of a physician." Many make a des- 
perate attempt to believe that they have no con- 
viction, so intent is sinful nature upon its own 
destruction. Sin is a shorter term for suicide or 
self-destruction. Until a man is brought to the 



HOW TO SEE EMPTINESS. 2*] 

conviction that he is sick, you cannot administer 
medicine. Man's spiritual sickness was set forth 
in a former section. Here we endeavor to SEE 
the difficulty. Man naturally, or rather unnatu- 
rally, avoids thinking of, and dealing with, his sin. 
He views his goodness, and contemplates that, 
with his chances of its being received by God, as 
true spiritual worth. God intends that all his peo- 
ple shall be as good as his Son, Jesus. In Christ 
he has set forth the single and simple method of 
obtaining goodness. God in the gospel would 
have men contemplate their sin, and then the 
righteousness of his Son, Jesus. Not to look 
within, but unto Christ for spiritual worth. To 
lay no claim to goodness, except that received 
from Christ. 

Paul looked at himself for years, and saw 
PAUL, himself the best of his race. One day he 
received a view of Jesus, and he fell 
down, — down from his own goodness, down from 
haughtiness and pride, down from self-sufficiency, 
down into fear and blindness. Then the Lord 
said to him, "Arise." He arose into permanent 
exaltation. His work, character, mighty power in 
the world, have never gone down. The way to 
true spiritual exaltation is through a low valley, 
in which is seen human sin, and in which that sin 
is lost in forgiveness. 

Into the environment of Job, the devil, by per- 



28 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

mission, entered. Ruin reigned. Job looked 
Job. about, and within himself, saying: " I have 
been, and am, righteous." Later, God spoke 
to Job, and turned his face upward, and in the 
view he obtained of God there came a change 
in Job, and he said : " I have heard of thee by 
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth 
thee, therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust 
and ashes." What caused the change from main- 
taining his righteousness to this abject condition? 
Seeing God. A view of God showed him his sin. 
Job could not, neither can any other man, plead 
goodness with a view of God before his eyes. 
The only method by which a man can see good- 
ness in himself and of himself is by turning his 
back to God, and letting darkness cover him. 
So men love darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds are evil. Neither Paul nor Job could 
detect a flaw in their lives till they received a view 
from heaven. 

What a man Jacob was ! He calls his 
Jacob, own sinful devices the prospering hand 
of God. He spends a night alone with 
God, and his name and his character are forever 
changed. The reason is in his testimony, "I have 
seen God face to face." 

Isaiah says : " I saw also the Lord, sit- 
ISAIAH. ting upon a throne, high and lifted up." 

Notice the result. "Then said I, Woe 



HOW TO SEE EMPTINESS. 29 

is me ! for I am undone, because I am a man of 
unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people 
with unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the 
King, the Lord of hosts." Then the coal of fire 
came, and the information, " Thine iniquity is 
taken away, and thy sin purged." Then he found 
his work. No man can possibly know God's will 
for him till he has seen his own sin, and so ad- 
justed his relations with God, and so obtained his 
proper attitude toward God. A view of one's 
actual spiritual condition, in God's sight, is abso- 
lutely necessary to a correct view of life, and a 
right work in life. It is basal. If wrong, the 
whole life will be abnormal in its view of the 
world, of self, and of God. As it is a fact that 
sin exists, it is essential that that sin be seen by 
its possessor that a proper disposition be made of 
it. We cannot deal with an imaginary thing, or a 
vague, doubtful something, but must KNOW of its 
reality, and realize somewhat its proportions and 
relationships. All truly good men have had much 
to do with, and much to say about, sin. 

When Peter first recognizes the super- 
PETER. natural in Christ, what is the effect of 

that recognition? Peter falls down. No 
man can stand upright before God. On the face 
is the attitude of men who see God. Then Peter 
makes confession, " Depart from me, for I am a 
sinful man." His words are not self-justification, 



30 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

but, " I am a sinful man." When men see God, 
they see their own sinfulness. 

We notice some reasons for the lack 
Eight of conviction. i. Looking at the 
REASONS, natural heart, and counting good in- 
tentions, and good resolutions, good 
wishes, and thoughts. 2. Looking at personal 
good deeds in the world, as seen in moral and 
civilized actions, as required by good society. 
3. Looking at one's neighbors and associates, 
and comparing their lives with his own, and find- 
ing favor on his side in the comparison. 4. 
Looking at professing Christians, and seeing their 
wrong and questionable doings. 5. A persistent 
refusal to compare the life with a biblical stan- 
dard. 6. A refusal to view the life in the light 
of the Christ standard. 7. Insistence upon only 
reading those books and associating with those 
persons who accord with their own views. 8. A 
refusal to pray to God that he might show them 
their own hearts, and a constant shutting out of 
views of God. 

True conviction is seen in a dissatisfaction 
The with the past. At the end of the Saul 
PAST, life, he said of it, referring to his excellent 
natural acquirements, of his religion, of his 
honorable and official position, of his religious zeal, 
of his personal righteousness, that he counted it 
loss and but dune. At the end of the Paul sec- 



HOW TO SEE EMPTINESS. 3 1 

tion of that life, how different. "A noble contest 
I have contested, the race I have finished, the 
faith I have kept." There is a possibility of satis- 
faction with the past, but that satisfaction is only 
in " the faith." Other conditions of satisfaction 
are but stupefaction. A recognition that the past 
has been wrong is one of the first elements of 
conviction. This unrecognized, no progress can 
be "made. Progress blocked. Salvation impossible. 

True conviction is seen in a discontent 

THE with the present. The disciples came 

PRESENT, to Jesus with the lament, " Why could 

we not cast him out? " There was a 
devil within that they could not master. The con- 
victed man realizes that there is an evil within 
unmastered. Good does not prevail. Like the 
temple in Hezekiah's day, the need of repairing is 
apparent; so man's nature all out of sorts needs 
reconstructing. As the " filthiness " was carried 
out of the temple so the heart needs cleafising. 
As the doors were shut so the heart has been 
shut toward God. As the lamps were gone out, 
so darkness has reigned in the life. As there 
were no sacrifices offered, so the convicted man 
realizes that he has rendered nothing to God. As 
God's wrath was upon them, so God's wrath is 
felt to be upon the convicted one. As desolation 
by sword and famine has reigned in Israel, so the 
man feels his desolate and famished condition. 



32 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

As their children were in captivity, so the man's 
faculties are bound down and useless. As Israel 
turned and made a covenant with God, so the 
convicted man feels this necessity upon him ; to 
turn to God for the remedying of his present 
condition. 

True conviction is an aspiration for a 

The better future. Life's trials are too 

FUTURE, severe, duties too arduous, problems 

too intricate, to be met single-handed. 
Solomon asked of God as he looked into the 
future, " Give me now wisdom and knowledge that 
I may go out and come in before this people." 
Conviction centres a man's future in God, where 
self-centering is the reverse. Dependence upon 
one's own wisdom and knowledge rather than the 
divinely given. 

True conviction may be the 
CONSCIENCE. " ought" dictated by conscience. 
But conscience cannot be de- 
pended upon as a guide for it has failed many, 
ruined its multitude, slain its tens of thousands. 
There is an unnatural or destroyed conscience 
which is unfit for action. Paul likens it to flesh 
seared or cauterized with a hot iron. Thus in- 
jured and inactive it is productive of untold error, 
(i Timothy 4:2.) In Ephesians 4:19 such 
persons are referred to, " Who being past feeling." 
A conscience that is burned and feelingless is not 



HOW TO SEE EMPTINESS. 33 

one by which a person could judge right or 
wrong. 

There is a defiled conscience. (Titus 1: 15.) 
Even their mind and conscience is defiled. A 
sinful conscience needs cleansing before capable of 
judging rightly. This is also seen in the need of 
the conscience being regenerated, as set forth in 
Hebrews 9: 14. "How much more shall the 
blood of Christ . . . purge your conscience 
from dead works to serve the living God?" Men 
may go according to their conscience, and thus 
directed be serving in dead works — a lifeless 
religion. 

There is a weak conscience. " Their con- 
science being weak," this one may wound, "and 
wound their weak conscience." So a conscience 
may not be actually leading to sin but may be so 
feeble as to not allow sturdy action and forward 
development in the life. 

There is a convicting conscience. " i\nd they 
that heard it being convicted by their own con- 
science went out one by one." This was a con- 
viction of immorality. Their conscience was 
good here as far as it went, but it failed the 
same people in other departments of action and 
of life. 

There is the good conscience. In 1 Peter 3:21, 
we read, " The answer of a good conscience 
toward God." In 1 Timothy 3:9, " Holding the 



34 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

mystery of the faith in a pure conscience." And 
I : 19, "Holding faith and a good conscience 
which some having put away concerning faith 
have made shipwreck." In these scriptures it is 
seen that a good conscience is in vital union with 
faith. In the first quotation the source of a good 
conscience is the resurrection of Jesus, in the 
second it is through the gospel, and in the third 
ruin has come through the separation of faith and 
conscience. We conclude that there is no good 
or correct conscience aside from faith. In Acts 
23 : 1, Paul says, " I have lived in all good con- 
science before God until this day." And in 
24: 16, "A conscience void of offence toward 
God." His conscience here is exercised in con- 
nection with his Christian relationships, and in 
this time in Paul's life he had no religion aside 
from the gospel as revealed in Jesus. There is no 
trustworthy conscience known aside from that 
under the sway of, and that purified by, the gospel. 
Conscience can only be depended upon to be 
correct when proved true by and directed by the 
Spirit of God. 

Conviction arises through the 
CONVICTION workings of the Spirit of God. 
BY THE SPIRIT. When he is come he will con- 
vict the world of sin. In 1 
Corinthians 14: 24, it is said of the gathering of 
the church, " But if perchance all be prophesying, 



HOW TO SEE EMPTINESS. 35 

and there come in one, an unbeliever or a private 
person, he is convicted by all, the secret of his 
heart is being made manifest; and thus falling 
down on his face he will worship God, reporting 
that, in reality, God is among you." This evi- 
dently is Spirit conviction through testimony or 
preaching the gospel. " By sound doctrine both 
to exhort and convict the gainsayers'." Thus the 
Spirit uses the scriptures for conviction. The law 
is spoken of as useful in the same direction, "Con- 
victed of the law as transgressors." (James 2.) 
Of Apollos it is said, " For he mightily convicted 
the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the 
scriptures that Jesus was Christ." (Acts 18 : 28.) 
All will be convicted in the end. In Jude 15, it 
says, " The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his 
saints, to execute judgment upon all and to con- 
vict all that are ungodly." The word in the above 
scriptures is translated convince in the authorized 
version. These scriptures show that sinners are 
convicted by the Spirit of God using the word of 
God, and through the instrumentality of Spirit- 
endued men who know the scriptures. Convic- 
tion is not simple opinion or impression, not fol- 
lowing the best religious policy, not joining the 
church that is most convenient, not doing any 
religious duties according to opinion or conven- 
ience ; but a power that causes men to act in 
their lives in conformity to the mind of God as 



36 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

revealed in the scriptures. True conviction 
comes from the word of God and the Spirit of 
God. Spirit conviction relates to personal rela- 
tionships with Jesus Christ. He, the Spirit, will 
convict of unbelief concerning him, of his right- 
eousness in life, death, and resurrection, of the 
justice of God passed upon him when he made 
atonement and salvation, through suffering, possi- 
ble for men. 



HOW TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 37 



III. 

HOW TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 

" In those days came John the 
REPENTANCE. Baptist preaching in the wilder- 
ness of Judea, and saying, Repent 
ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This 
was John's first text and message, his introduction 
to the world. He makes it evident from the very 
first that he is a preacher of repentance. The 
first thought and text of Jesus to the world was, 
" From that time Jesus began to preach, and to 
say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand." Both gave as a reason why men should 
repent, — the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Why 
is this? Men can have no part in the kingdom 
without getting rid of their sin. Sin is the diffi- 
culty between earth and heaven. Repentance is 
God's means for man by which he is to get rid of 
sin. After a man is convicted that he is a sinner, 
and ought not to have this sin, the natural ques- 
tion is, How to get rid of it? John and Jesus say, 
" Repent." When the disciples of Jesus were 
sent out under his own direction, the record 
informs us as to what they preached, " And they 



38 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

went out and preached that men should repent." 
At the first preaching on the day of Pentecost, 
when the people were convicted of their sin and 
came asking what they should do, Peter said to 
them " Repent." Two men went to church. 
They -both prayed. The one said, " O Lord, I 
thank thee that I am good." The other looked 
low and said, u O Lord, show mercy to a sinner." 
This last went home with the consciousness that 
his sins were forgiven. God requires that men 
shall confess their sin to him in repentance. 

Julian dies in praise of the conquering 

THINGS power of Jesus. Napoleon said, "What 

Men Say. &n abyss between my deep misery 

and the eternal reign of Christ." Mill 
said that we must place the prophet of Nazareth 
in the very first rank of men of sublime genius. 
Renan said that Jesus fixed the starting point of 
the future fate of humanity. Josephus said, " He 
was the Christ." Pilate said, " I am innocent of 
the blood of this just person." The Centurion at 
the cross said, " Truly this was the Son of God." 
Judas said, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed 
innocent blood." But God's demand of men is 
that they say, I REPENT OF MY SINS. Rather than 
a thousand other things that are good and true, 
but not to the point for a sinner. The only voice 
that God will hear coming from a sinner is that of 
repentance. To be saying good or smooth 



HOW TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 39 

things about Christ when the heart is giving God 
the lie by its unbelief is effrontery to God. I 
repent, men will not say, but prefer a thousand 
palliatives in its place. 

Men experience regret like Wolsey. 
THINGS Are stricken with pangs of remorse like 
Men Do. King Saul. Suffer like Herod. Give 
like Gerard. Are full of prayer like 
the TMohammedan. Exceedingly religious as the 
Pharisees. Build altars like Cain. But rarely 
obey the first injunction and repent. This is 
God's first requirement, and until it is done none 
other is acceptable. 

Men invent other ways to get rid 
Inventions, of sin. Sometimes their religious 

inventions for killing sin are a pro- 
duct of ignorance and superstition. The heathen 
torture themselves by holding an arm over their 
head till it is stiff, they lie on a bed of spikes, 
throw themselves in sacrifice to their god. The 
moralist by his good works tries to atone for his 
sin. The humanitarian by being kind to his fel- 
low, creatures. The religionist by being faithful 
at church and prayer. All these methods for kill- 
ing sin are alike fruitless. Some try to do away 
with sin by the entire destruction of the good, for 
when all good is gone, sin will not be seen to be 
sinful. So Satan tried to dethrone God. So the 
Pharisees tried to destroy Christ. So the unbe- 



40 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

liever tries to destroy Christianity. So the indif- 
ferent hope for the failure of Christianity, their 
hope being in darkness. Others, like Jehoiakim, 
hope to get rid of their sin by cutting up the book 
that reveals their wickedness. Ever since Cain 
the wicked world has thought to do away with 
its sin by murdering the faith, people, and the 
righteous. These devices for the destruction of 
sin have never succeeded, but always involved 
those who practised them in greater wickedness. 

Why do not men take the easiest 

THE EASIEST way to get rid of sin? There is no 

Method. method attended with such little 

expense, for the cost has been 
paid by another. Out from her home in the 
Highlands of Scotland there wandered a young 
girl into Edinburgh. Leading a sinful life for 
some years, she at last found herself in an attic, 
deserted, without food and sick. Coming thus to 
herself, and thinking of the disgrace she had 
brought upon herself and her family, she started 
out to end it ail by drowning herself in the river. 
On her way to end her sinful life, she passed a 
mission from which her ears caught the song, and 
then the words : 

" In the Cross, in the Cross, 
Be my glory ever ; 
Till my raptured soul shall find 
Rest beyond the river.' 1 



HO W TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 4 1 

The thought of the river arrested her. She sat 
down upon a step near by, and cried over her 
life. She arose and found her way back to her 
Highland home, arriving near midnight. Lightly 
touching the door-latch, the door opened. As 
she cautiously stepped inside, she was surprised-to 
hear her mother's voice asking, " Is that you, 
Mary?" 

"'Yes, but, Mother, did you know that your 
door was unlocked? " 

But by this time the mother had her wandering 
girl in her arms, saying, " Child, the door has 
never been fastened since you went away." 

There in her mother's arms she repented and 
found immediate forgiveness ; in the mother's 
home shelter and care; under the mother's min- 
istries healing and health and a new life. It was 
easier to have her sin forgiven than to drown it 
with herself in the river, and with it lose her life 
and her soul forever. So the Lord urges every 
wanderer home, saying, " Him that cometh unto 
me I will in no wise cast out." The Father's for- 
giveness is easier than suicide. 

Why not take the best way? It 

THE Best has been shown to be the only suc- 

METHOD. cessful way. Major D. W. Whittle 

gives the following illustration of 

repentance. "A married couple in Indiana became 

estranged by quarreling, and great bitterness had 



42 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

grown up between them. After hard words one 
day, the husband said hastily, " Well, we had bet- 
ter be separated. I will bring you a divorce." 

" Very well; I wish you would," was the wife's 
reply, not dreaming that she would be taken at 
her word. 

A few days after, her husband handed her a 
document, remarking, " There is the divorce you 
wanted ; you are free to go." 

She calmly took the paper, read it, and said : 
" I will pack my things and I wish you would see 
that I take nothing that does not belong to me." 

The work of packing her trunks commenced. 
Satan had possession of both of them, as in pride, 
stubbornness, and hatefulness the woman took her 
things from closets and bureau, and the man 
watched in gloomy silence. Suddenly he was 
startled by his wife's dropping upon her knees and 
bursting into sobs and moans ; he went to her 
side and saw folded in the lower drawer, the cloth- 
ing of the one little boy who had died years 
before. Unexpectedly the mother had come upon 
the little jacket and trousers, the belt and boots, 
the cap and comforter, all the precious possessions 
treasured by the mother heart and so long pre- 
served. The man gazed a moment, and the same 
emotions overcame him. He saw again the face 
of his darling boy, he bore again with the mother 
the bitter sorrow of the night beside the dying 



HOW TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 43 

bed, and of the day of gloom when they laid the 
precious one away. He fell upon his knees beside 
his wife and sobbed with her. In a few moments 
he took up the divorce, tore it in pieces, and said, 
" Wife, I have been wicked and wrong; will you 
forgive me? " 

" I have been more to blame than you, hus- 
band, I am the one to be forgiven." 

And in the presence of God and of their angel 
child, they were reconciled. So " God was in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." Let 
us get men occupied with the crucified Redeemer, 
and they cannot but repent. 

The easiest and best way is God's way. 
God's All ages have shown it to be the way of 
Way. wisdom. It is the method that all adopt 
if they find access to God. This is illus- 
trated in the lives of Job, Jonah, Peter, dying thief, 
Paul, and a host of martyrs, reformers, mission- 
aries, and Christians of all ages. In Acts 5:31, 
we are told that God exalted Jesus to be a princely 
leader and Saviour in order to " give repentance." 
In the central deserts of Australia the natives live 
on a plant called the nardoo. The early English 
travelers ate of it and found it satisfied their hun- 
ger, but they noticed themselves becoming weaker 
day by day till eventually one of them, it was dis- 
covered, died of starvation. The plant had satis- 
fied their hunger but had not nourished them in 



44 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

the least, and so deceived them. It placed them in 
the strange»condition of supposing they were being 
fed when in reality they were starving." Such are 
the delusions of subterfuges for repentance. Many 
of them seem to satisfy temporarily, but the inevi- 
table day comes when the soul realizes itself 
famished and lost. Only sure forgiveness through 
Christ can place the soul in a flourishing condi- 
tion. This is God's way. 

True repentance is basic to the 

The SOURCE OF possession of true Christianity. 

DIFFICULTY. Trace Mr. Shallow Professor's 

religion back to this point and 
you will see the beginning of his difficulty. Con- 
sult Miss Bigot and you will see that her ugliness 
comes from a defect here. Investigate Madam 
Pride and you detect quickly the marks of her 
mistake. Consult Mr. Millionaire and you will 
find that his non-interest in missions runs back to 
his repentance. Talk with Professor Bighead and 
you will not discover that he ever knew that he 
was a sinner. Watch Pastor Scientific and you 
will see that his investigations have not found sin. 
Watch Miss Nimblefeet and you will discover that 
whatever else she has seen she has never seen her 
own heart. Tell Deacon Indifference that you 
think a revival would do much good, but he has 
not detected much sin in the community for he 
has never seen it in his own life. The reason 



HOW TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 45 

Elder Farms is not free with his money for the 
conversion of the ungodly is because he never felt 
the conviction of sin they talk about, and he 
guesses God will overlook the frailties of weak 
men. The list has legions in it, and the difficulty 
with all is in their failure to get a view of their own 
sin, and so have not known repentance. 

What is repentance? It is turn- 

TURNING THE ing the direction in God's strength. 

DIRECTION. For the man to turn in his own 

strength is failure. A repentance 
without divine grace is nothing more than asking 
the pardon of one on whose foot you have stepped. 
No particular feeling about it except that you 
desire to act decently in society. To repent rightly 
one must know in what they have sinned, and 
against whom they have committed the sin. It is 
to come to the place where the prodigal came, — 
to himself. He saw his lost, ruined, disgraceful 
position. Nothing imaginary, he saw it as it was, no 
one need tell him, he knew it better than any one 
else. In the second step he resolved, — I will arise 
and go to my father. He saw his own condition ; 
he saw his father's condition as he remembered it. 
He was sadly in need of what his father had. In 
the third place he went to his father. Repentance 
is getting up and going back home, — home to God. 
This young man saw his condition ; he resolved, he 
acted. Some think repentance is simply seeing 



46 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

our condition and resolving. The prodigal could 
have meditated upon his sin and resolved and 
resolved till he was resolved to a dying beggar 
and then been resolved to a worse than a pauper's 
grave. What he did do was to turn his direction 
and get up and go home. Repentance is quitting 
the old life with its ragged clothing, unhealthy 
food, swine associates, foreign country, and going 
to a father's house. Look about you and see if 
you are in your Father's house surrounded by 
your Father's bounty, and you can easily tell 
whether you have really repented or not. Those 
who have genuinely repented are in their Father's 
house. You know whether you have a new robe 
on or not. Is there a ring on your finger and 
shoes on your feet? Are you conscious of joy 
and plenty? Have you heard the Father say, 
" This my son was dead and is alive again, was 
lost and is found." The Father had no doubt as 
to the identity of his son, nor as to his past or 
present. Is there doubt in your mind as a pro- 
fessed son? 

Repentance is turning to obedience. 

OBEDIENCE, " Son, go work to-day in my vine- 

WlLL, yard. He answered and said, I will 

WORK. not ; but afterwards he repented and 

went." 

Repentance is to change the will and so the 
choices. As Joshua gives his last charge to 



HO IV TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 47 

Israel, he says, " Choose you this day whom you 
will serve." The answer from the people is, " We 
will serve the Lord." Their wills determined what 
they would do and their choices were expressed 
in the service they rendered. 

Repentance is to change the purpose 

Paying a and so the work of life, as Saul's 

DEBT. purposes and life's work changed on 

his way to Damascus. Repentance is 
paying God the debt that you owe him. The chief 
item in that obligation is love which you have not 
turned in on account. Suppose that there are several 
men in a community, each of which owes one man 
a specified amount of money. The creditor desires 
payment from each and all of these debtors. He 
visits them with a view to receiving his own. The 
first upon whom he calls says, " Oh, I will pay that 
when I get ready." He laughs and makes light of 
it. So do men when they are asked to pay their 
debt to God. A second whom he visits replies to 
his request, " I deny your claim." The creditor 
throws the case into court and collects. So will 
God at the coming court season when the judg- 
ment throne is seen A third says, " Oh, I will 
pay you sometime. I would like to use it a little 
longer myself. You do not need the money." 
So do men talk to God. A fourth says, " I will 
pay you twenty per cent, of what I owe you. 
You ought to be satisfied with that." But God 



48 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

requires full payment. Paying a little is not 
getting right with God. Rascality with him will 
not work though it can often be done with men. 
A fifth says, " I have the money but I do not feel 
like paying you to-day. Call again some more 
convenient time. Perhaps I will pay you to-mor- 
row, or some time before I die. If not, I will 
make provision in my will." Plenty of time. So 
do men treat their obligations to God in a manner 
which they would not dare to use in their obliga- 
tions to their fellow-men. 

You are dishonest with God. You will 

In be thrown into the debtor's prison unless 

HELL. you pay all you owe. In hell how can 

you pay? You will stay there till you 
do pay, and how can you obtain the wherewithal 
in that place? The devil's wage is more and more 
sin, and so more and more death. God will have 
none of it and that is all you possess there. What 
he accepts now for payment is the righteousness 
of Christ which is placed at your disposal, but will 
then be withdrawn and you are beyond redemp- 
tion. Repent while you have a repenting basis. 

God's word now to such debtors is, 

God's " Wash ye, make you clean, put away 

THOUGHT, the evil of your doings from before 

mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to 

do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, 

judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come 



HOW TO GET RID OF EMPTINESS. 49 

now and let us reason together saith the Lord ; 
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and 
obedient ye shall eat the good of the land." 

How is it possible for God to forgive what we 
owe when we repent? ''Surely he hath borne 
our griefs and carried our sorrows ; yet we did 
esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. 
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he 
was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of 
our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we 
are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, 
we have turned every one to his own way; and 
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." 

But how do we know that God will forgive when 
we. repent? " If we confess our sins he is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us 
from all unrighteousness." 

4 



5<3 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 



IV. 
THE CAUSE OF FULLNESS. 

" I declare unto you the gospel which 

THE I preached unto you, which also ye 

GOSPEL, have received, and wherein ye stand, by 

which also ye are saved." So speaks 
Paul in First Corinthians I : i, 2. In Romans 
i : 1 6, 17 we read, "I am not ashamed of the 
gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto 
salvation to every one that believeth. 
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed 
from faith to faith as it is written, The just shall 
live by faith." In First Corinthians 1:18, notice 
the words, " The preaching of the Cross is unto us 
which are saved the power of God." 

From the above scriptures we gain 
Safety, the information that there is something 

which has come into the human experi- 
ence of some men which is termed salvation. 
This term means safety. It suggests its opposite, 
— danger. What danger or enemy are we safe 
from if we have this safety? An angel from 
heaven said concerning Jesus, " He shall save his 
people from their sins." First Timothy 1:21 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 5 1 

declares " That Jesus Christ came into the world 
to save sinners." Safety from sin is the teaching. 
This safety from sin men have enjoyed. 

The means of safety is spoken of as the 

PLAN, gospel and the cross. In this connection 

these terms include each other. They 

mean God's plan or method of safety for men as 

revealed in the earthly mission of Christ. 

This is spoken of as the power of God. 
POWER. It is no simple matter, but a manifesta- 
tion of omnipotence. The power of an 
almighty being. It is not a minor or compara- 
tively unimportant matter with God, but an expen- 
diture of his power. 

This salvation is believed in. Is received 
BELIEF, by those who are saved by it. It is a 
provision of safety, powerful to save, 
but will not save unless it is accepted by the per- 
son who needs the safety. 

Paul asks them in Ephesians 6: 19 to 
MYSTERY, pray for him, "That utterance may 
be given unto me, that I may open 
my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of 
the gospel." He frequently speaks of the gospel 
as a mystery which has been kept hid, but was 
revealed to him and through him made known to 
men. But the principal thing about it is not its 
mysteriousness, but its power to bring safety to 
men. So many stumble because they do not 



52 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN, 

understand, so Paul says, to the Greeks it appears 
as foolishness, and to the Jews, though such a 
religious people, it is as a stumbling block. So it 
also has been to others from among other nation- 
alities. 

It can be understood sufficiently to get 
UTILITY, its power for service, for the use it was 
intended, so that it fills its purpose. 
What deeper understanding do men have of 
steam? They understand it just enough to get its 
power for use. Of electricity? Their knowledge 
is sufficient to make use of it. Of physical laws 
everywhere it is the same. Thus far we under- 
stand the gospel. What foolishness for men not 
to accept the gospel because they cannot under- 
stand it, when in reality they understand it bet- 
ter than they can a steamship. The gospel is a 
power for safety. It was provided for use, not for 
the exercise of reasoning or the development of 
the intellect. Sufficient for its purpose because 
powerful in God. 

Any student of human nature, of biog- 
MUCH raphy, of human history, sees that evil 
MORE, is the strongest power that humanity 

possesses, or that possesses humanity. 
But through the gospel there is a power that is 
much more than the power of evil. In Romans 
5 :8, 9, we read, "But God commendeth his love 
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 53 

Christ died for us. Much more then, being now 
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from 
wrath through him." Also in the twentieth verse 
(as also in three other places in this chapter is 
the term used), "Where sin abounded, grace did 
much more abound." The gospel is much more 
powerful than sin. So it can give us safety from 
sin. Compare human thought and devices, human 
attainments and provisions for safety purposes 
with the gospel provisions, and the latter will be 
seen to be much more than any one of them or all 
of them combined. 

Humanity has learned to have confidence 
Law. in the unalterable reign of law. Recur- 
ring summer and winter, gravitation, water 
running down hill. These are always to be 
depended upon as they never change. The Hud- 
son river cannot flow north because the slope of 
the land along its course is south. There is no 
law in nature which would so change the land as 
to make the river run north every hundred years 
with undeviating regularity. There is no applica- 
tion of law that would make such a change. But 
in the gospel there is such a law, and so the 
gospel becomes much more than natural law. 
The law of sin is death, and it is running its course 
through human nature toward death. The gospel 
changes human nature which in the illustration 
corresponds to the change in the slope of the 



54 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEAT. 

section of New York state through which the 
Hudson flows. It places another law in this new 
nature, the law of life in Christ Jesus, which flows 
upward unto righteousness and God. 

It is a law of gravitation that all weighty bodies 
fall downward. The gospel furnishes a law by 
which men can rise upward. In the cases of 
Enoch and Elijah and of Jesus they bodily 
ascended independent of the law of gravitation. 
The gospel promised Christian men the power to 
go up and meet their Lord in the air at his com- 
ing. It promises the resurrection of the bodies 
of all men. Something much more than the law 
of gravitation. At Willet's Point is a powerful 
magnet which will draw upward cannon balls and 
crowbars. It overcomes the law of gravitation. 
The gospel overcomes and is much more than 
natural law. It furnishes a powerful, invisible 
law which enables men to rise Godward even 
while weighted down with the laws of sin and 
iniquity about them and upon them. 

The postulate of evolution is that 
EVOLUTION, the fittest survive. The unfit die 
out, and so leave room for the best 
and strongest of the species. The gospel is much 
superior to evolution in that it provides for the 
survival of the unfit. The lowest and weakest 
may survive. Not that it places a premium upon 
weakness, but its superiority is seen in the fact 



THE CAUSE OE EMPTINESS. 55 

that it makes the weak strong and the unfit fit to 
survive, a thing unknown to evolution. The vilest 
sinner may become a saint by the re-creating 
power of the much more gospel of Christ. They 
who were considered the most unfit for the king- 
dom entered in before the supposed fit Scribes and 
Pharisees. The thief on the cross goes with Jesus 
into Paradise, not the High Priest. 

A good man is the goal of morality ; 
MORALITY, the gospel is much more. God does 

not recognize goodness as we under- 
stand the term relating to morality. That good- 
ness is a human product. The gospel furnishes 
a divine life, which in turn furnishes the Christ 
goodness or righteousness which God recognizes 
as true merit. One of the great deceptions of 
Satan is to prevent men from seeing the distinction 
between moral action, as performed by a human 
being, and spiritual action as a product of divine' 
life. The divine life will have all that is moral, 
but it will have much more. In a religious publi- 
cation of recent date the circumstance is told of 
the misfortunes of a certain man who was brought 
to such financial straights that his household 
goods were put up for sale by^ the sheriff. The 
neighbors and people present would not bid on 
the goods. At last the entire contents of the 
house were sold for thirty-one cents. The publi- 
cation comments upon the circumstance in this 



56 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

way, — " The neighbors who attended the sale 
were filled with the love of Christ. This is the 
greatest indirect testimony for the Saviour we 
have seen in a long time. The sweet spirit of 
Christ was in their hearts, although perhaps many 
of them would not have admitted it, and they pro- 
tected the poor and sheltered the homeless, thus 
carrying out his life and gospel in the most elo- 
quent and practical way possible/' Here action 
is attributed to the Spirit of Christ which may 
have been nothing more than natural fellow feel- 
ing and common neighborliness. Any infidel 
could have and likely would have done the same. 
Has Christ reached such a degree of spiritual 
poverty that he must burglarize Judas and take 
his natural fellow feeling and label it Christianity? 
Morality and spirituality are two and altogether 
separate forces. The one is human and controlled 
by civilization, the other is divine life through 
Christ and controlled by the Holy Spirit. The 
gospel is much more than moral action. Civiliza- 
tion has been made by Christianity, but civiliza- 
tion is not the established kingdom of God, nor 
all civilized persons members of the kingdom. 
Neither can civilization save a soul or give an 
inheritance in the kingdom. Just as a refined and 
wealthy woman may by her bounty and attention 
reform a drunkard and reestablish his home in 
pleasantness and prosperity, yet this attitude and 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 57 

work of hers would not give him access to her 
mansion and make him heir to her property. 
Christianity may civilize society and make the 
world fit to live in, but that does not admit the 
world into heaven. A man may give me a thou- 
sand dollars, but the gift does not make me his 
son. A man may eat the fruit of an orchard he 
does not own, of which he has no knowledge as to 
lo'cality, extent, or value, he may even deny that 
such an orchard exists. 

The gospel is much more than human 
REFORMS, reforms. They are self-centered and 
deal with the people in the locality 
where they are organized and propagated. The 
gospel is evangelistic and missionary, and seeks 
the reformation of peoples whom it has never 
seen, — who live at the ends of the earth. What 
merely human reform has ever conceived such an 
idea? Furthermore it reforms for two worlds, 
with the emphasis on the unseen. 

The gospel is much more than 
Wisdom, human wisdom. Pharaoh, Naaman, 

King Saul, thought they were wise. 
Saul of the New Testament times, Pharisees, Pilate, 
Herod, thought they were wise. So thought infi- 
dels and persecutors of subsequent ages, but how 
foolish they have become. Divine wisdom is 
seen to be best, and in the Old Testament the 
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and 



58 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

in the New the gospel makes wise unto salvation. 
Dives and the young ruler were wise for earth, but 
how foolish for eternity. 

Gospel wisdom takes in eternity. It is much 
more than human policy and expediency ; 
much more than the honesty the best policy 
plan of life. 

The gospel is much more than 
CRISES, human provision against the emer- 
gencies of life. In spite of all precau- 
tion the engine dashes into the obstruction and 
lives are lost. The vessel goes down. Disease 
takes an unexpected turn and the patient dies. 
The gospel makes unfailing provision for soul- 
saving and also for body-saving. Out of the. 
wreck the body comes at the resurrection, to be 
united to the soul in a glorified man. " He that 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
When a man moves his business he- hangs out a 
sign to that effect. Paul moved from Judaism into 
Christ, and said that in the future he could only 
be found " in him." There was to be no more 
going out, he was going to " die in the Lord." 
How idle human provisions against death. In the 
gospel there is no more death. 

Gospel is much more than 
Achievement, human achievement. Life is 

strewn with the failure of human 
efforts. Every enterprise, though it continues for 



THE CAUSE OF EMPTINESS. 59 

hundreds of years, comes to an end. The gospel 
enterprise includes a campaign for eternity, this 
life being preparatory. Human achievements end 
where the gospel purposes and plans fairly begin. 
Gospel victory is much more than 
VICTORY, human ; the one is pugilistic, the 
other spiritual. Human victory is 
suppression, putting your enemy under, and keep- 
ing him down by superior power. The gospel 
victory in Christ is to conquer by transforming 
the enemy into your lover. Men conquer the lion 
by shooting him. Christ conquers men by making 
them love Him. Surely love victories are superior 
to death victories. 

These illustrations will serve to show 
Christ, the power of the gospel in its ascen- 
dency over the merely human. It is 
the power of God. It is more than human, higher 
than man, it is Christ the divine Son of God. It 
is not a plan, a theory, a purpose, a doctrine or 
theology, one among many ways to heaven ; it is 
more than man, it is the divine man, God's 
beloved Son. It is beyond the Bible, which is the 
written revelation of it ; it is the divine personality, 
a being, not a theory, not a thing. " I am the 
way, the truth, and the light." Men speak of 
believing this, that, and a thousand things, and 
they come not within a thousand miles of the gos- 
pel when they speak simply of beliefs. Faith is 



60 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

not merely assent, it is the reception of the divine 
being into the life. Christ in you the hope of 
glory. Christian hope is not hoping that the per- 
son will get to heaven, but a divine life within at 
the present time. Not I know in what, but I 
know in whom, I have believed. Beyond the 
whats, and hows, and whys, and opinions, and sup- 
positions, and reasonings, to a person, the divine 
Son of God. This is the gospel. 



WHAT IS FULLNESS? 6 1 



V. 
WHAT IS FULLNESS? 

" In Him was life and the life was the light 
Life, of men," is the statement of John I : 4. 

And in 5 : 25, " For just as the Father has 
life in himself, in the same way, even to the Son 
gave he to have life in himself." In 10: 10, " I 
came that life they might have." In verse 28, 
" I gave unto them life eternal." As to how 
this life is sustained we read in 6: 48, " I am the 
bread of life." When Adam was created God 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he 
became a living being. Just so in the new crea- 
tion, in the new race of men, beginning with the 
last Adam. As physical life was started in Adam, 
and has been handed down to all humanity who 
have peopled the earth, so the spiritual life — that 
is, the life of the Christ generation — of men who 
are to people the kingdom of God, get their life 
from Christ. With this difference, that for each 
member of the kingdom it comes directly from 
Christ by spiritual gift, and not through natural 
generation. This life in distinction from natural is 
termed eternal. The natural life is closed by 



62 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

death, but he that liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die. It is a life not injured by human cas- 
ualties ; it cannot be affected by disasters and 
misfortunes, or by the dying and death of the nat- 
ural world. It is life forever. 

This life is blissful in time and in 
HAPPINESS. eternity. In its cultivation in this 

world the natural life may suffer. 
"All they who will godly in Christ Jesus shall 
suffer persecution." The natural man may have 
to endure much chastisement that the eternal may 
have control. He may have to endure pain, 
suffer hardships, experience misfortunes ; but the 
eternal life itself is not affected, he has an under- 
current of joy that is not touched by the surface 
trial. In eternity the cause of sin being gone 
there will be no trial and suffering, the entire life 
will be blissful ; the present nature being glorified 
and made like unto his glorious body. He came 
to seek and to save that which was lost, through 
the bringing of life, giving of life, sustaining life. 
This life furnishes satisfaction. 
Satisfaction. The testimony of history and ex- 
perience is that position, prop- 
erty, fame, society, money, honor, family, and 
kindred earthly possessions, accomplishments, and 
surroundings do not bring to the possessors the 
satisfaction they hope to find in them. So that the 
wealthy and honorable as well as the poor and 



WHAT IS FULLNESS? 6t, 

despised, both alike, ask the same question, Is life 
worth living? Thousands more than will ever 
confess it to their own hearts mourn out the sad 
consciousness to their inner soul, life is not worth 
living. They find no adequate compensation for 
the struggle. They lack the one thing needful, 
found in eternal life, which history and experience 
prove to have given the satisfaction they have 
craved. They have received a satisfaction beyond 
all earthly pleasure and wealth, and which no 
earthly privation or suffering could molest. 

Man was made with a capacity 

Capacity FOR for eternal life. Without it he is 

Life. never at ease unless under some 

intellectual halucination or devil- 
administered narcotic. Like a person who is a 
born artist, and conscious of his gift, but has no 
opportunity to gratify his taste or cultivate his art ; 
shut out from, and away from, all opportunity, 
there is no peace or rest, — he is out of his ele- 
ment, like a refined person who must live in 
vulgar society, do the things that are repugnant to 
his tastes, and be surrounded with the uncon- 
genial. He yearns for something, but it is out of 
reach. So with every person created for eternal 
life and has it not. The gospel reveals this need 
and supplies it in Jesus Christ. 

Eternal life is that without which man is incom- 
plete. Created for this and not possessing it, he is 



64 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

abnormal, a deformity in heav- 
COMPLETENESS. en's eye. A deformed body 

lacks some physical functions 
which belong to it. A deformed mind lacks brain 
power and is termed insane. A deformec* spirit 
lacks eternal life and is said to be dead. Earthly 
homes for incurable bodies, asylums for incurable 
minds, hell for incurable spirits. Many diseased 
bodies and minds are curable, not having reached 
the incurable stage, many souls have not reached 
the incurable state, and these when they receive 
the gospel of eternal life, vigor, vitality, spiritual 
health, live again, — are born again, so completely 
cured as to never die. The difference between 
eternal death and eternal life is that in one case the 
spirit is incurable, it lives forever in its incurable 
state ; in the other case the spirit is cured and well 
and lives forever in a spiritually healthy existence. 
The disease that possesses the lost soul is sin, — 
that which hurts, injures, spiritually kills. It 
brings to bear upon the soul the condition called 
death. The gospel of life is presented in Christ's 
life to cure this death. Cured by life they have 
life forever. Eternal life is entered upon and sus- 
tained by a divine power which is spoken of in 
such terms as to indicate that it is something more 
than a reformation of the old life, a resolution to 
live better, a change of character. The entrance 
upon it is called a new birth, and the living is 



WHAT IS FULLNESS? 65 

called a new man, a new creature, partaking of the 
divine nature, and in its maturity, " for me to live 
is Christ." These are remarkable- words and 
statements and surely indicate a supernatural oper- 
ation of. the Divine Spirit in making and keeping a 
member of the kingdom. 

A being born again is necessarily, 
BORN Again, if words mean anything, coming 

into new relationships in a new 
life. " Except a man be born again he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." As there are earthly king- 
doms so there is the divine, established with Christ 
at its head, which now is invisible, but made up of 
all spiritually born persons, and in the future will 
be seen and visibly established. This corresponds 
in usual vocabulary to becoming a Christian and 
going to heaven. A man born in an earthly king- 
dom is a subject of that kingdom. He has citizen- 
ship there. So says the scripture, a man to be a 
citizen of the kingdom of heaven must be born 
into that kingdom. This is the law of citizenship. 
To be a citizen of the United States and hold 
office here you must be born in the coun- 
try, — suppose that was the law here. Could 
foreign peoples become citizens? No, for the 
law is birth in the land in order to citizenship. 
Can a man be a citizen of the kingdom of God 
and be and do just as he pleases about it? The 
law is, " Ye must be born again or ye cannot see 
5 



66 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

the kingdom of God." A Russian comes to the 
United States and says, " I desire citizenship, I 
will learn the language of the country so accurate- 
ly that I can speak it better than a majority of the 
native-born people." He goes according to his 
resolution and then applies for citizenship. The 
judge inquires, "Were you born here?" 

He answers, " See how well I speak the lan- 
guage of the country ; find a flaw if you can." 

The judge explains, "The law is not as to your 
qualifications in speaking our language, but is that 
you must be born here." 

So many speak the language of the kingdom, 
and yet have no citizenship in it. Because they 
can pray well and preach eloquently they think- 
that they have a right in the kingdom. Alas, for 
their delusion ! 

An Italian makes his home in -our land and 
applies for citizenship. Asks the judge, " Were 
you born in this country? " 

He answers, " I conform to all the laws of the 
land ; I understand your law books ; I know all 
your national and social customs ; I am qualified 
for citizenship, as I know the country and its cus- 
toms better than many of the citizens whom I 
have met." 

The reply comes sure and firm, " The law is 
that you must be born here." 

How many know the Bible and Christian usages, 



WHAT IS FULLNESS? . 67 

and do many works in the name of the king, but 
have not been born into the kingdom? 

A Japanese comes. " You desire citizenship 
sir, and upon what grounds? " 

" I am a business man of honest and wide stand- 
ing. I have the confidence of all your citizens 
and carry on an extensive trade with them. In 
fact they have cheated me, but I them, never. I 
have a clean record." 

"'Where were you born? " 

" In Japan." 

" Our law is, that birth in the country alone 
entitles to citizenship. We commend your good- 
ness and honesty, and wish all of our citizens were 
like you in this, but as our law reads that you must 
be born here, we cannot admit you to citizenship." 

Just here so many honest men are deceived. 
All men who are really in the kingdom are honest, 
but honesty alone will not save a man. " Ye must 
be born again." 

A man from England applies for citizenship. 
Upon what grounds does he apply? His attorney 
says, "This gentleman has lived in our country 
forty years. He has endowed our colleges, estab- 
lished hospitals for our sick and injured, he has 
been a patron of many of our benevolent institu- 
tions, and by his gifts has made himself a favorite 
with our people. He is entitled upon this ground 
we believe to citizenship in our country." 

The judge asks, "Was he born here? " 



68 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

This life is fruit producing. There are 
FRUIT, many delicacies manufactured for our 

tables, but no one attempts to manufac- 
ture fruit. Fruit must grow. The difference 
between this life that I am speaking of and the 
moral life is that the latter manufactures deeds 
while the gospel life grows fruit. It is the differ- 
ence between the making of a loaf of bread and 
the growing of a peach. Consider the lilies of 
the field, they toil not neither do they spin ; but 
consider them further, how they grow. Every 
one can detect the difference between toiling and 
growing. The growing is a silent, spontaneous, 
continuous, easy process. It is from within out- 
ward. The toiling is a laborious, disconnected, 
noisy process, and all on the outside. A man 
makes a wagon that rumbles along the street, a 
tree along the same street grows apples. The 
difference in process is apparent. The one is 
gospel, the other morality. The gospel requires 
fruit, " I am the vine and ye are the branches ; he 
thafabideth in Me and I in him, the same bring- 
eth forth much fruit." Conceive of the utter insan- 
ity of a man sticking some delicious fruit on a bad 
tree, with the intent that the stuck-on fruit would 
make the tree good in its nature, and so cause it 
to bear good fruit. So spiritually insane are many 
of the world and church that they are doing this 
very thing. Heaven mourns and hell laughs. 



WHAT IS FULLNESS? 69 

The barren fig tree is always an example of 
fruitless Christians. Wood and the leaves of the 
tree and general appearance of the tree were 
promising, there was every evidence of fruit but no 
fruit. It was cursed not for lack of leaves, of 
good growth, but for lack of that for which the 
rest was all preparatory, — fruit. The promise is, 
" Ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful." As is 
seen in experience it is an easy matter to counter- 
feit works, but who can successfully counterfeit 
fruit? By their fruits ye shall know them. 

How is fruit-growing power 
GROWING POWER, to be obtained? When phy- 
sical life has reached a very 
low condition through the loss of blood, and the 
life is in the blood, science resorts to a remedy 
known as the transfusion of blood. The veins of 
another are opened, and the new, healthy blood 
is placed in the veins of the dying patient, and life 
is restored through the transfusion of blood, which 
is giving the patient the life of another. This is 
the meaning of the cross.. The strong, divine life 
was placed at our disposal through the pouring 
out of the blood of Jesus Christ. The strong and 
pure flowed into the veins of the weak and dying, 
and so we have life through Hirn. This is the 
divine coming down to rescue the human, and 
saving it by its presence. Morality and human 
works are worthless because they are not divine, 



70 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEM. 

which alone saves. It is the incomprehensible 
mystery of life giving. Who knows how even the 
lowest forms of life originate? And until men 
understand the lower let them not hope to grasp 
the higher. 

When the science of transfusion was first prac- 
tised it proved a failure, and it was not a success 
until the blood of like species with the patient was 
introduced into his veins. The blood of an animal 
would not resuscitate a man. On Calvary there 
was poured out human blood, from the body of 
one of like humanity with yourself. The apostle 
says, " We are sanctified through the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all." How 
many centuries has the world tried the offering of 
another species? Under the Mosaic law they 
offered the animals which were not of human 
species and of them it is said, " For it is not pos- 
sible that the blood of bulls and goats should take 
away sins." They were shadows and types of the 
perfect sacrifice. " Neither by the blood of goats 
and calves, but by his own blood he entered in 
once into the holy place, having obtained eternal 
redemption for us." 

The life of an angel is not of the right kind to 
make atonement for you, the blood of sheep not 
of the right species. ( Much less, how could your 
own material works, such as your good deeds, 
make an atonement for you? Bring healing to 



WHAT IS FULLNESS? 7 1 

you in your sickness? You were made in the 
image of God, as sons of God you forfeited this 
relationship in sinning, and now nothing but the 
transfusion of like life with yours, but pure, can 
restore you. So God sent his well beloved Son, 
our elder brother, of like parentage with ourselves. 
He alone could redeem us. In him we have re- 
demption through his blood. Without the shed- 
ding of blood there is no remission of sins and 
this blood must be that of the Lord Jesus. In 
that blood there is life for us, and as a product of 
this new life we are to bear like fruits with Christ, 
and by these fruits we are to be known. 

What is meant by fruit? That taught 
Love, and shown in the life of Christ. That set 

forth in I Corinthians 13. In Galatians 
5:22 the direct statement is, "The fruit of the 
Spirit is love." Among the many comparisons 
that Paul makes we take as an example faith and 
love ; though a man have miraculous faith it 
would not profit him if he have not love. We see 
wondrous faith in the world ; it cures the body ; 
it carries on great religious enterprises, shows 
itself in manifold beauties and accomplishments ; 
yet we see no love in it. This faith would con- 
quer at the sacrifice of you and me and of our 
church and family. By their fruits ye shall know 
them. The first true fruit of the spirit of Christ is 
love. Though a person profess faith in Jesus and 



72 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

show not love to God and man, but harbor hate, 
envy, and such like, we know that their faith is 
vain, though it were strong enough to remove 
mountains. A benevolence to the poor or the 
heathen without love is of no profit to the giver. 
Though the body is given in martyrdom, dying at 
the burning stake, and there is not love in the 
heart, that great sacrifice is of no value to the one 
who makes it. The first evidence that we have 
of the new life of Christ will be seen not in great 
words, works, and sacrifices, but in love. Any 
student of human nature will see at once that the 
faculty of pure, simple, disinterested love, of the 
divine quality, is beyond the natural capacity of 
man to originate and possess. The first element 
in sin was and is selfishness, the opposite to love. 
His new life within casts out sin and implants 
love. 



HOW TO GET FULLNESS. 73 



VI. 

HOW TO GET FULLNESS. 

A man is told to " Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ," but in the great variety of instructions 
about believing he is confused. He does not 
know what to do when- told to believe. The fact 
that the object of faith is unseen stumbles some. 
How can a man believe in that which he does not 
see nor understand? It is a fact, however, that he 
must do so in regard to the most natural and 
every-day matters. 

A man must doubt what he 

Cannot Believe sees. He looks through a 

OUR SENSES. stained-glass window and sees 

a blue, red, yellow, house ; in 
this case he cannot believe what he sees, for he 
knows that the house is not of these colors. Paul 
says that in our present state of spirituality we 
look at things through a colored glass. (1 Cor. 
13:12.) A man cannot believe his own sense of 
hearing; he hears choice singing or the rendering 
of instrumental music ; he is delighted, and deter- 
mines that he must know who possesses such a 
voice and who renders such music. He is informed 



74 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

that he has been listening to a parrot of a phono- 
graph and that no musicians have been present at 
all. He discovers that he cannot depend upon 
his hearing. A man is mesmerized and he thinks 
he is joyful and sings. He is hypnotized till he 
thinks he is sorrowful and mourns over imaginary 
griefs. He goes down the street and friends plan 
a practical joke; they tell him how sick he looks, 
and it works on his mind till by night he sends for 
a physician. A man must not believe what he 
sees and hears and feels. There are many false 
spirits gone out into the world. There are angels 
of darkness which appear as angels of light in 
order to deceive. They cannot be detected by 
the natural senses. They can make a person feel 
good or bad at will. They quote scripture and 
thus delude and lead astray, as Satan attempted 
with Jesus. Try the spirits and test the quotations 
to see if they be of God. 

On the other hand, a man 
Belief Outside must believe what his senses 
OF SENSE. cannot detect. A person is 

insulated and a wire passes 
before him ; he looks and sees nothing but a wire ; 
he hears nothing; he can taste nothing; he can 
smell nothing; he feels nothing; so determines 
that it is nothing but a common wire. His friends 
laughingly inform him there is sufficient light 
going through that wire to light a village, or sum- 



HOW TO GET FULLNESS. 75 

cient power to run a factory ; there is present the 
subtle power of electricity. It was not to be seen, 
heard, felt, tasted, or smelled, yet the man must 
believe it there or be counted a fool. Why must 
a man thus deny his senses? Because positive 
knowledge upon the testimony of thousands denies 
the testimony of those senses. Facts as experi- 
enced in the results coming from belief in elec- 
tricity and moving according to that belief have 
produced wonderful transformations in our world. 
In the Old Testament a man who did not believe 
in God was called a fool. A man in the New who 
does not believe in Christ is relegated to a worse 
place as to character, and his unbelief makes God 
a liar. Just as man has discovered an unseen 
power and used it according to the laws of its 
working and it has done wonders for the world, so 
there has been placed at the disposal of humanity 
a spiritual unseen power, the acceptance of which 
transforms the individual and gives the blessings 
of civilization to modern times. Are there such 
fools and liars that would deny that there was a 
cause when they saw a village lighted or a factory 
running? Are there such fools and liars as to 
deny a cause when they see modern Christianity, 
with all of its blessings to the world? A man is 
not insulated and he does not believe that there is 
power in the wire. He takes hold of it, saying, 
" I will run the risk." He is stricken with imme- 



>j6 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEW. 

diate death. He has the experience and the by- 
standers the illustration of unbelief in its results. 
So unbelief brings its dire spiritual results to those 
who will not recognize spiritual laws but rather 
defy them. 

How can God hear prayer, 
Influence Without as there is no visible ave- 
CONTACT. nue of communication be- 

tween man and God ? How 
could Jesus, when risen, pass through closed doors 
and appear instantaneously in the presence of his 
disciples? You take a bottle and place a ther- 
mometer in it, so cork it that no particle of air 
can pass in or out, then place the bottle in a dark 
and cold chest. After a time you take it out, and 
find that the thermometer is at zero. Darkness 
and cold temperature were in the bottle. You 
look again, and you find that now the thermome- 
ter is rising, — you notice that light and heat have 
gotten into that bottle without any visible avenue. 
If there can be such a physical thing, why not a 
spiritual? If you can speak to a man ten miles 
away without using any visible avenue of commu- 
nication, as telegraphy without a wire, why not 
speak to God in heaven? If you believe in the 
one, why not in the other? The coils of wire in 
the dynamo generate electricity without coming 
into visible contact with each other. Influence 
without contact. This is also seen in the power 



HOW TO GET FULLNESS. 77 

of one mind over another. What visible contact 
was there between the bitten Israelite in the wil- 
derness, and the piece of brass upon the pole? 
Yet the poisoned who looked at the serpent of 
brass were cured. As Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be 
lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish but have everlasting life. What visi- 
ble "contact between Christ on the cross and the 
sinner? As a multitude of bitten Israelites were 
cured by looking, so the multitude of sinners who 
have looked to the uplifted Christ have been 
healed of their sin. Reasonableness is not the 
test of workableness of any machine or enterprise, 
but the results. Not the understanding of the 
connection between the man and the serpent of 
brass, but was he healed when he looked? The 
testimony is that he looked and lived. A scien- 
tific or philosophic theology, or the accurate un- 
derstanding, is not the measure of the truthfulness 
and value of Christianity, but does it do what it 
professes to do? Does it save a man from his sins? 
In every age millions have testified that it does. 
We have yet to receive the testimony of a single 
individual from among all the millions during 
these nineteen hundred^years who can testify that 
he has conformed to the laws of the kingdom of 
heaven and yet has been cast out of the kingdom. 
Let your arguing, doubting church-members and 



78 FULL LLFE FOR EMP'l Y MEN. 

infidels organize their bands of investigation and 
take the census of all the persons in nearly nine- 
teen hundred years who have yielded themselves 
to Christ, and see how many he has saved and 
how many he has failed to save, -and let the re- 
port be evidence as to the truth of the claims of 
, Jesus. 

Christian belief is receiving into the 

BELIEF IS life that which the soul professes 

RECEPTION, faith in. Faith is reception. A 

man may believe in the existence 
of the empire of Japan, but that is not receiving 
that empire into his life. A man may believe 
that Gibbon's History of the Rise and Fall of the 
Roman Empire is true, but that belief is not re- 
ceiving into his life that history as a law of his 
own existence and so changing the whole order of 
his being by it. A man may believe in the life 
and work of Mr. George Muller, but that belief 
would not be understood by his neighbor that he 
received into his life the methods, principles, and 
forces of that life so as to make a second Muller 
of him. So the distinction between a general be- 
lief in earthly men and things and Christian faith. 
The latter is reception where the former is not 
and cannot be. ♦ - - 

Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is receiving 
into the life one who is Lord. An authority that 
is absolute. No appeal from his rulings. The 



HOW TO GET FULLNESS. 79 

throne of an absolute sovereign is established, 
from whose decisions as to thought and conduct 
there can be no deviation. He there reigns as a 
true Lord. It is a great thing to have an author- 
ity in the life. The Roman Catholic finds this 
authority in his church. The Christian finds it in 
his Lord, whose scepter rules in his life. 

Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is receiving into 
the life Jesus. A new human power capable of 
coping with human problems. A man who was 
tempted in all points like as we are. A man who 
knows men, and understands the world. A man 
who can give to human life such a mission as to 
make this life valuable and worth the living. A 
man who can make this world what God intended 
it should be to us. A man who brings with his 
presence a religion that is able to meet all the 
possible trials of human life, and makes provision 
for every human crisis. A man who can direct 
in business tact, and conduct business in the world 
in honesty and according to the honor of God. 
A man who can steer men through all the worldly 
and wicked complications of human life and bring 
the possessor to a full and rich destiny. 

Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is receiving into 
the life Christ. As Jesus stands for humanity so 
Christ stands for divinity. He was God as well 
as man. Receive into your life a divine power 
stronger than all other powers combined. His 



80 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

divinity is the assurance of your victory. He is a 
Saviour that saves human life and the life to come. 
A divine being who can at will pass from iime into 
eternity, — from earth to God's throne. With such 
a one in your life, heaven is sure ; you will see 
without doubt the face of God. You make the 
Christ who makes heaven a part of your life. So 
receive into your life an authority who is both 
human and divine. 

Belief is believing what he says 

Belief is to be true. 
THREE Fold. Belief is doing what he says. 

Belief is receiving what he offers. 
A certain man had three daughters whom he left 
at home when he went into a far country. To 
each of them he wrote a letter after he had been 
away many months, saying, " Your father loves 
you and is sorry to be away from home for so 
long a time. I know that you are lonely in my 
absence, but be courageous for upon my return I 
will provide something better for you than you 
have ever yet received from my hands. I will 
not always be away." This they all THREE BE- 
LIEVED. 

He went on further in his letter to each, saying, 
" While I am away I desire that you should be 
kind to the poor, and I will take those kind acts 
as though they were done to me. I command 
you to love one another. To pray to your Father 



HOW TO GET FULLNESS. 8 1 

in heaven for blessings. To work to reconcile 
aliens to him. Do good while the day lasts." 
This much TWO OBEYED. 

He continued in his letter to each, saying, " On 
the twenty-second of September I will arrive in 
New York ; come and receive me. I will bring 
with me many presents from the lands where I 
have been; come and receive them. While ab- 
sent I have accumulated experience, knowledge, 
and wealth ; as much of these is yours as you will 
receive." ONE went and RECEIVED. 

All believed him, two obeyed him, only one 
went and received him. But true faith is believ- 
ing, obeying, and receiving, — these three. Many 
have only reached the first stage, they believe 
the Bible, accept the word of Christ. They are 
bibliologists. They believe the historical record 
given by God of his Son to be a true record. 
The religionist scrupulously obeys God as he 
understands his commands, and supposes that he 
is doing his whole duty. He is being deceived. 
The keeping of outward commandments is not 



all there is of Christianity, else what need for a 
change on the part of a Pharisee like Saul of 
Tarsus? Of the young ruler who went away from 
Jesus sorrowful? Of a Martha who lacked the 
one thing needful? Of a Nicodemus who could 
not understand a question of faith? The true 
believer is more than a bibliologist, more than a 



82 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

religionist, he is both of these and much more ; 
he is a Christian or a receiver of Christ. 

Belief, therefore, is action. The Phil- 
BELIEF IS ippian jailer, after his professed belief 
ACTION, washed the wounds of the apostles, 
was baptized, brought his household, 
entertained, rejoiced ; all activities following faith. 
Abel's faith was professed in his sacrifice. 
Enoch's in his walk, which pleased God. Noah's 
in building the ark. Moses in his choice of the 
people of God. Jesus commends the woman of 
Canaan for having great faith ; this was seen in 
her cry for mercy, in her disregard of rebuke, in 
her dauntless courage and perseverance, in her 
humility, in her recognition of the rights of others, 
in her expressions of her own utter unworthiness, 
and in her argument. Faith is action. When 
they brought the paralytic to Christ he SAW their 
faith. 



TO KNO W THA T YOU HA VE FULL LIFE. 83 



VII: 

HOW TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE FULL 

LIFE. 

There is a scripture which says, 
Humility. "That they might know thee, the 

only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom thou hast sent." Though provision has 
been made for knowing God, yet men complain of 
their lack of this knowledge, and lose their souls 
through the complaint. Men have sought to 
know God and have failed, just as many prayers, 
according to James's teaching, have failed because 
the praying is amiss. David leads us to the secret 
when he says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken 
spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou 
wilt not despise." Again in the Thirty-fourth 
psalm we read, "The Lord is nigh unto them that 
are of a broken heart ; and saveth such as be of a 
contrite spirit." Isaiah also helps us with infor- 
mation as to how to find God, in his sixty-sixth 
chapter and second verse, " To this man will I 
look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite 
spirit, and trembleth at my word." Also in 
57: 15, "For thus saith the High and Holy One 



84 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I 
dwell in the high and holy place, with him also 
that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive 
the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of 
the contrite ones." When man first sinned in the 
garden his sin was connected with self-knowledge 
and self-sufficiency, and presumed ability to take 
care of himself independent of his Creator. By 
this self-will and independence he lost fellowship 
with God, and it is unreasonable to suppose that 
by means of the same he could regain this fellow- 
ship with the Creator. We would suppose that 
just the opposite course from the one in which he 
lost God, would be the method of finding him. 
So it is, and so proclaimed in the scriptures 
quoted. Men with proud and rebellious hearts 
and living in disobedience to God will never be 
able to find him. He does not show himself to 
such, but veils himself from them because he can- 
not look upon sin with the least degree of allow- 
ance. But the humble and broken spirit finds 
God. A prominent clergyman in New York was 
visited by an infidel friend. Both being scholars 
they conversed on learned subjects, and drifted 
into the subject of Christianity. Said the minister, 
" You will admit the possibility of there being a 
God?" He received an affirmative reply: ''Then 
if there is a God, you will admit the possibility of 
the God being able to hear and answer prayer?" 



TO KNO W THA T YOU HA VE FULL LIFE. 85 

The unbeliever assented. Then the minister re- 
quested that they should kneel in prayer, which 
they both did. He prayed earnestly for the 
enlightenment of the infidel heart that he might 
know God, then asked his friend to pray. He 
began hesitatingly, and after correcting himself 
several times broke down entirely, and in a 
moment gave the confession, " I have found God." 
In all his reading, thinking, investigation he had 
not found God, but now in a moment of yielding 
himself to God he found him. "The Lord is nigh 
unto them that are of a broken heart." 

In humble obedience, the Lord 

Finding and his will are found. Obedi- 

God's Will, ence is the means to knowledge. 

" If any man will do his will he 
shall know of the doctrine." (John 7: 17.) The 
only path in which positive knowledge is promised 
is the path of obedience. Obedience is the only 
unerring means of knowing. The disobedient 
people of Christ's day could not understand him, 
and he says of them, ■' Why do ye not understand 
my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my 
word." Disobedience closes the ears and under- 
standing, and obedience opens them to hear and 
understand. Many are much troubled as to the 
way in which they should go. Their path is dark 
to them. Eleazer, the servant of Abraham, was 
sent on a mission, but the way was unknown to 



86 FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

him. He gives it as his experience, " I being in 
the way the Lord led me." When he received 
the command he placed himself in the way; set 
his face in the direction. He made ready, started, 
and being in that obedient position he was led. 
It is unreasonable to expect guidance when you 
are in the wrong path. There are no angel guides 
there ; the Lord does not guide there, if he did he 
would be a deceiver. He cannot lead in mercy to 
you, and in righteousness to himself if you are in 
known and wilful disobedience. You going to the 
extent of your positive knowledge as to the right 
way, you will find angel guides at every turn, and 
ever a voice behind you saying, " This is the way, 
walk ye in it." Every person knows the next 
step and they are under obligations to take that 
before they get directions for the second, for our 
life is a walk by faith. Get in the way that you 
know, and you will be led aright day by day by 
the Lord's "gracious leading. There he will never 
leave thee nor forsake thee. 

The blind man was sent to the pool 
How TO of Siloam to wash. He received 
Get EYES, his sight by going to wash, by wash- 
ing ; then he came back, seeing. 
If he had waited till he saw before he started for 
the pool he never would have seen at all. By 
obedience, his sight came. You will never see 
the scriptures in their beauty till you obey. You 



TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE FULL LIFE. 87 

will never see God in his glory except you obey. 
You will never see the meaning of human life and 
of this world till you obey. Those problems of 
yours you will never see unraveled till you obey. 
Eyes are to be found only in the path of obedi- 
ence. 

Naaman, the Syrian, came to be 

How TO Get healed by Elisha, the prophet of 

HEALTH. Israel. Where did he find his 

health? In his thoughts as what 
the prophet would likely do? In his anger at 
what the good man told him? He received no 
healing till he, in humble obedience, went down 
and dipped himself. He found health in obedi- 
ence. He could never have found it anywhere else. 
The God of Elisha heals only there. But he can 
always be depended upon to be found in that place. 
Men seek for his blessings in other places, but 
are not rewarded for their search. But never has 
a single son of humanity ever sought for God in 
the obedient place but what he has been rewarded. 
Take a step over into the path of obedience, and 
there you will find a health-giving God who will 
heal you. 

Obedience is a means of happi- 
How TO Get ness. In John 13: 17 we read: 
Happiness. "If ye know these things, happy 

are ye if ye do them." In James 
1: 25, we also read: "But whoso looketh into 



88 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN.. 

the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, 
he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the 
word, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Or, 
as another good translation would have it, " This 
man shall be happy in his deed." God has not 
intended that this life should be all unpleasant- 
ness and sorrow, but has provided a path of hap- 
piness for all who will walk in it. It is a walk 
according to right laws of true joy. The path of 
obedience is the truly happy one for all. It may 
not look so before it is started upon, but time and 
eternity will reveal that the path which God maps 
out for every individual life is the path wherein is 
to be found the highest possible happiness, even 
for this life. Would that all could see this provi- 
sion which is made for them by the Father who 
loves them, — loves his children, and would give 
them only pleasure in all his ways. Obedience 
would rid us of so much of the grievous sorrows 
of this life. 

Obedience is the place of perma- 

How TO nency. Read Matthew 7: 24-27, 

Keep Safe, and see the results of obedience in 

time of storm, and the results of not 
obeying in the same crisis. How opposite they 
are. One is safety, the other is destruction. Obe- 
dience is sure foundation, for it is rock. The dis- 
ciples were crossing the lake in obedience to the 
command of Jesus. It looked as though their 



TO KNOW THAT YOU HA VE FULL LIFE. 89 

boat was going to the bottom, but he rebuked 
their doubting, and showed them that they ought 
to have known that obedience to him was safety. 

Spiritual wrecks lie all about us, 
DISOBEDIENCE, who have come to that condition 

by confronting a duty in their 
experience which they have failed to perform. 
They have refused to be led further along God's 
way, and now they are wanderers and doubters 
and a menace to the faithful. It is a sad contem- 
plation to recall what Lucifer fell from. He is 
falling deeper and deeper till he reaches the 
lowest pit. Men start on the down grade when 
they break from the path of obedience. Look at 
the experience of the young ruler. He was liv- 
ing a good life, but being dissatisfied with it, he 
sought something better. Jesus loved him, and 
offered him the best of earth and heaven. Gave 
him a plan by which he could not only save his 
soul but also save his life in this world, yet more 
than this, save his property for heaven. Come, 
follow me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. 
Jesus would not rob him of a mite, but asked him 
to put out his money where he would receive 
large interest, and in the end the principal also. 
Meeting Jesus, and having expressed to him his 
aspirations and getting further light as to duty, it 
was now his part to obey. He failed and he fell. 
He went out sorrowful, — went out to be sorrowful 



90 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

the rest of his days, — went out to be poor in the 
next world. He had been doing well up to the 
time of his meeting Jesus, but from this point he 
falls back into sorrow and loss through disobedi- 
ence. Many deplore their poverty and unhappy 
condition, when, if they would recall the past, they 
would see the point of departure from Jesus, and 
that at that place their trouble began. 

When a person finds himseli obeying 
The Test. Christ, he may know thereby that 

Christ is in him. Obedience is most 
blessed in that it furnishes a. means of knowing 
the actual spiritual condition. By it we may dis- 
cover the presence of faith. By it we may know 
whether we love God or not. If ye love me, keep 
my commandments.. A man may know whether 
he believes or not by looking at his tongue and 
seeing if he is confessing Christ according to 
the commandment. He may have a proof as to 
whether his repentance is true and valid by no- 
ticing if he is leaving off his old habits and 
sins, and taking on new ones according to the 
gospel. His willingness to obey and actual obe- 
dience determine his professed faith. His obedi- 
ence sets forth positively the quality of his faith 
and love. He may know his standing with Christ 
by seeing how near he lives to Christ in faith and 
suffering. True relationships determine intima- 
cies and positions. He may know whether he 



TO KNOW THAT YOU HA VE FULL LIFE. 9 1 

truly fears God or not by seeing if he possesses 
any of the secrets of the Lord ; for the secrets of 
the Lord are with them that fear him. A man 
may know whether he is living for heaven or not 
by keeping account of how much treasure he is 
laying up there ; this will show him how much he 
believes in heaven. Put your profession to a test, 
and see how true it is. If you fear to do this, it 
shows to yourself your own hypocrisy. So obe- 
dience is valuable to show us what sort of Chris- 
tians we are. 

No one will confuse works of moral- 
MORALITY. ity with this work, which is a work 
of obedience. Works of obedience 
reveal Christian character as works of morality 
reveal moral character. The distinction is appar- 
ent as Christian character is a gift. " By grace 
are ye saved and not of yourselves, it is the gift of 
God." The value and pride of morality is that it 
is from the man himself, — it is not a gift but his 
own prodnct. 

With every command from God there 
GRACE TO is accompanying it the grace for obe- 
Obey. dience. Obedience to God's com- 
mands is sometimes naturally impos- 
sible. The man with the palsied arm is com- 
manded to stretch it out — an impossible act for a 
paralyzed arm. But with the command from 
Christ there always goes sufficient strength for 



FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 



obedience. Otherwise many of his commands 
would but mock us. He commands us to love 
him, and he gives the grace to love; to believe 
and gives believing grace. The man at the 
Bethesda pool is commanded, " Rise, take up thy 
bed and walk." He had been in his infirm condi- 
tion thirty-eight years. Could he get up? Would 
he not have done so long ago if it were possible? 
What mockery to tell him to rise and walk ! But 
Jesus with the. command gives rising and walking 
power. So with every command that he gives. 
No sinner has ever received the command to 
repent but grace sufficient to repent has been 
given him. No Christian ever confronted a God- 
given duty without the gift of sufficient grace to 
perform the service. 



HOW TO KEEP FULL LIFE. 93 



VIII. 

HOW TO KEEP FULL LIFE. 

The lily of the field grows and 
CHRIST in You. blooms, and continues to do so 

as long as it is full of lily life 
within. The Christian life is a flourishing and 
.victorious life so long as there is within fullness of 
the life that makes the Christian, " Christ in you." 
Cut off the life supply and the lily dies ; so with 
the Christian, who is to consider the lilies of the 
field how they grow. A remarkable comparison 
has often been made between Christianity and the 
natural religions, in that the former provides for 
an indwelling God in the worshipper, where in the 
latter the religion is entirely external. " Christ in 
you the hope of glory." The heathen and the 
moralist hope for glory by what they do and 
have on the outside. With the Christian Christ 
comes and lives in him at the new birth and he is 
a new creature in him. Many Christians do not 
possess this consciousness of the indwelling Christ. 
They are saved but they are not conscious of the 
fullness and blessedness of their salvation. They 
are living in a condition of spiritual poverty when 



94 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

they have wealth at their disposal, but have not 
the knowledge to recognize it as theirs and use it. 
Many good people go to church and have a glo- 
rious time, returning with the words, " We met 
God at the service to-night." That is good, just 
as it is good for a man to be in his library and 
have his books there within his reach. But there 
is something better than that; let him have his 
library in him, know the contents of his books, 
and make what is valuable in them his own by 
intellectual assimilation. It was a grand experi- 
ence for the disciples on the Emmaus road to 
have Christ walk with them, and break bread for 
them at the end of the way, but then he departed 
from them. Better after Pentecost to have the 
Christ dwelling within continually and be able to 
experience, " It is no more I that live but Christ 
that liveth within me." 

In the Bible we have the revela- 

The Bible tion of the mind of God to men. 

AND CHRIST. It contains the record which God 

has given of his Son. There must 
of necessity be a difference between the record 
and the fact itself, — the story of the man and the 
man himself. So while the Bible as God's word 
reveals him to us, we need to go a step further to 
the subject of revelation. We need not only the 
record of God's doings in the past, and the revela- 
tion of how he has come to others, but also the 



BOW TO KEEP FULL LIFE. 95 

presence of God with us, and with us NOW. The 
Christianity of the first century was foundational, 
absolutely essential, divine ; the Christianity of the 
nineteenth century is to be actually practised by 
us. Faith in an historic Christianity is necessary, 
but not sufficient, as we need a living God with us 
NOW. So the risen Christ has provided for that 
which many of his people have forgotten — for 
his actual living presence with them till the end 
of time. Christ was in the world in Galilee and 
Jerusalem, but is just as real in the state where we 
live and in our city. We would not for a second 
minimize the importance and authority of the 
written word, but we would magnify the necessity 
and importance of the presence of the living 
Christ now in every Christian life. 

In the days of Elijah his religion was 
Elijah's put to a severe test. On Carmel. there 
TEST. was to be a visible exhibition as to who 
was the real God. It was to be done 
then and there. It would not have been sufficient 
for Elijah to have shown to the wicked Jezebel, 
the trembling king, apostate Israel, opposing 
worshipers of Baal, that his God did wonders in 
Egypt; that he was there proclaimed and proven 
to be the true God. To his historic sermon they 
would have replied, " Prove it, prove it now." 
This Elijah demanded of their claims for Baal. 
This he actually gave to them then and there in 



96 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

evidence that Jehovah was God. God's works of 
an hundred years previous would not suffice for 
that occasion. Every man needs the working of 
a present God in his life, to whose work he can 
point and find no natural cause for it; but be 
compelled to say, " I can explain it only on the 
belief that a living God is with me now." Every 
age and every Christian needs this constantly 
present, working Christ within. 

Christ within furnishes the Christian 
CHRISTIAN love which we are commanded to 

GRACES, have toward God and toward our 
neighbor; furnishes the stalwart 
strength for the meeting of earthly work, con- 
flict, and persecutions ; furnishes the Christian 
beauties of character which are to be shown to a 
sinful world ; furnishes the testimony the Christian 
is to bear against sin and for righteousness before 
a gainsaying world. 

Christ within gives us evidence 

PROOF OF and proof of God's love to us. 
God's Love. Could a mother fail to love her 
own child? With Christ within 
we are God's children, the well-beloved of the 
Father sharing his life with us, living within us. 
God could not deny us without casting out his 
Son. This places us in the highest possible posi- 
tion before God. He so loved us before that he 
sent Jesus and now that love has been confirmed 



HOW TO KEEP FULL LIFE. 97 

and sealed inviolable in the presence of his Son 
in us, so that we have union with Christ as he 
has union with the Father. Could salvation be 
more secure? 

How is it possible for Christ to live 
God's in such an erring, imperfect, and 

RECKONING, even sinful being as the Christian 
is, though he professes regenera- 
tion? We are not to look at what we have been 
in Adam, but at what we are in Christ. Turn to 
Romans 6 : 6, and read, " Knowing this that our 
old man is crucified with him, that the body of 
siri might be destroyed, that henceforth we should 
not serve sin «■ for he that is dead is freed from 
sin." God reckons the believer as being crucified 
with Christ, and that he is dead. In Galatians 
2 : 20, we read, " I am crucified with Christ, never- 
theless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; 
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live 
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and 
gave himself for me." It is the Lord's doing and 
may well be marvelous in our eyes, the mystery 
of his saving power in Christ. " Buried with him 
in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him 
through the faith of the operation of God, who 
hath raised him from the dead. If ye then be 
risen with Christ, seek those things which are 
above." As the Christ was crucified, dead and 
buried and then raised from the grave, so the 

7 



98 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

Christian in him is reckoned crucified, dead, and 
buried, and risen. In Christ, " I live." This life 
of Christ is our salvation and sanctification. "We 
shall be saved by his life." One translation has 
it, " We shall be kept safe in his life." Our keep- 
ing is not in the works of our hands or in our 
prayers or abundant services, but we are kept 
safe in his life. His is the keeping, and he does 
it through the presence of himself in our life. 
Says Jesus, "And he that sent me is with me ; the 
Father hath not left me alone ; for (therefore) I 
do always those things that please him." 

It is told that a heathen woman in one of the 
hospitals had an ulcer which baffled the physicians 
and they were about to pronounce it incurable, 
unless a last resort would produce a cure. This 
was to graft new flesh upon the sore that new 
blood might cast out the poisoned blood of the 
patient. Her son refused to have flesh taken 
from his arm and left the city. A young mis- 
sionary discovering the case, offered her arm to 
the surgeon, who took her flesh and grafted it 
upon the diseased heathen. The operation and 
remedy proved successful and the patient recov- 
ered. When convalescent, the missionary found 
her examining the white spot formed by the 
flesh of the missionary surrounded by the dark 
skin of the heathen. In conversation the heathe'A 
woman said, " It was your flesh and blood that 



HOW TO KEEP FULL LIFE. 99 

cured me." Then the missionary told her of the 
mystery of a new life through the blood of Jesus 
Christ. That as she was physically born again 
through the incoming of new life into her system, 
so we are made new creatures in Christ through 
the coming into us of the divine life of Christ. 
The heathen woman became a faithful Christian 
and missionary to her own people, but she went 
out to teach not in her own life, but in the 
strength of the new life of the missionary. She 
lived and worked as a result of having the blood 
of another placed in her system. It was not she 
that lived, but the missionary in her. It is no 
more I that live, but Christ liveth within me. The 
sinner is cured of his disease of sin and then sus- 
tained in the new life by the life of another, 
" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man 
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." 
Once we were dead, — " No life in you." But 
now we live by the life of Christ, as the heathen 
lived physically by the blood, — the life is in the 
blood, — of the missionary. 



V 

e 



IOO FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 



IX. 

HOW FULL LIFE IS DEVELOPED. 

The question may arise in the mind 
Full Life. of. a thoughtful person, that a con- 
dition of fullness would need no fur- 
ther development. But fullness here does not 
mean completeness or perfection on the manward 
side. When persons are regenerated full life is 
placed at their disposal, which they may appro- 
priate according to their faith ; faith being the 
measure of capacity. Some at conversion grasp 
as in a moment the great truths, and launch out 
as proclaimers of them, and so from the time of 
their renewal are mighty for God. Others just as 
truly regenerated have no grasp of divine things 
after this style, but apprehension comes only with 
the passing years. The development of the life is 
the growth of faith or capacity to receive what 
God has placed at the soul's disposal, which of 
itself is full and complete. 

Turn to a figure used by the Master, 

LlFE FROM " Except a grain of wheat fall into 

DEATH. the ground and die, it abideth alone, 

but if it die it bringeth forth much 

fruit." (John 12 : 24.) Growth denotes life, but it 



NOW FULL LIFE IS DEVELOPED. IOI 

is life from death. If the grain of wheat does not 
die it remains but a seed. The Christian must 
learn the lesson so familiar to earth in seed sow- 
ing, and which was divinely carried out in Christ's 
death. Spiritual growth cannot take place till 
there is experienced the dying with Christ. The 
Christian must fall and die before he can expect to 
grow. No death, no growth. This may explain 
the lack of the Christian graces which everywhere 
we deplore. Unwillingness to die, and conse- 
quently, according to earthly and divine law, there 
is no growth. What do you mean and how are 
we to die? Is the matter you speak of figurative? 
It is the vivid experience of one whom we know 
intimately, that one day he saw himself carried to 
the village square, and there nailed to a cross. 
As he hung there he saw the scoffing world pass- 
ing by; he saw the members of the church where 
he belonged passing at a distance. Some stood 
in groups discussing; none came near him; none 
spoke a sympathizing word; the world mocked. 
Some Christians said it was a foolish sacrifice ; he 
might have been held in honor by us if he would 
have thought and acted as we did ; some won- 
dered ; many seemed in great amazement; none 
evidently could comprehend. He realized his life 
fast passing away ; an hour came when it seemed 
that his God left him ; he was alone. Darkness, 
blackness, tempest, everything in heaven and earth 



102 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

seemed to be swept away. Then upon another 
occasion upon the hillside, near the cemetery, he 
as with a flash, realized the meaning of being risen 
with Christ, and ever since has lived in the resur- 
rection life of Christ. 

Death with Christ means nailing to the cross 
things earthly ; they may be good in themselves, 
as the body of Christ, which was without sin. 
Nail self to the cross. In this death ambition for 
earthly fame is transformed into labor for the 
honor of Jesus. Treasure on earth is transferred 
and laid up in heaven. Disregard for the opinions 
of men, and craving the consciousness of doing 
God's will. Holy indifference as to the support of 
men, and carefulness to receive God's provisions. 
Dead to the love of praise but abiding in spirit 
communion. An abandonment of life to the 
Spirit's direction, regardless of earthly conse- 
quences. Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, except a Christian knows this, he 
will abide alone and not bring forth fruit, but if he 
die, out of the death will come much fruit, just as 
from the dying kernel of wheat the stalk and har- 
vest come. A new man, one of fruit-bearing in 
Christ Jesus. 

We have already suggested that a 

FAILURE failure to grow may be in a failure to 

TO GROW. die. Failure may be in insufficient 

soil to sustain the growth. It shows 



NOW FULL LIFE IS DEVELOPED. 103 

a good condition to have a vigorous appetite, but 
unfortunate to possess such and no food to supply 
it. Many start well in the Christian growth, but 
suddenly rob the life of support, and it perishes. 
Because of no depth of earth it soon withered 
away. Failure to grow may be on account of 
worldly suppression and the force of circum- 
stances, the earthly overpowering this new life. 
Thorns sprang up and choked it. Fruit-bearing 
seed is in good ground. The emphasis in the 
parable is in the quality of the ground. The seed 
sowing is not so difficult as the cultivation and 
development of the germinated seed to large 
fruitage. 

The injunction is to " Grow in grace." 
Grace. Jesus says, " Consider the lilies of the 

field how they grow." The develop- 
ment of life expressed in the term growing or 
growth is a biblical figure. It is life development 
such as a tree possesses. Grow as the lilies, as the 
trees of Lebanon. (Matthew 6 : 28; Hosea 14: 5.) 
Men are saved according to the truth of Ephesians, 
2:8. " For by grace are ye saved through faith; 
and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God." 
But they fail to see that they grow according to 
the same truth, as in 2 Corinthians 9: 8. "And 
God is able to make all grace abound toward you ; 
that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, 
may abound to every good work." Men are 



104 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

supernaturally saved, but fail to see that the salva- 
tion must also be supernaturally cultivated ; but 
they rather seem to think that it is naturally culti- 
vated. So Paul says to the Galatians in 3:3, 
"Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, 
are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" There 
are two methods of salvation, one by faith, the 
other by works. Those who are saved have found 
the fruitlessness of the works system and aban- 
doned it. The works system has been followed 
since Cain, and one would think that the world 
would learn wisdom by observation if not by rev- 
elation, by this time. But the blindness that hath 
happened not only to Israel but to the Gentiles 
also still holds them. The Christian is not saved 
by works, neither does he grow by works, for it is 
all of grace. We do not grow up unto grace as 
the works system would teach, but we grow " in " 
grace. Grace is the soil in which we grow. 
A child is born in a family and grows up in the 
family. It is not taken out into the woods and 
left alone to develop into strength and character 
till it becomes strong enough to come into the 
family. But it grows in the family under the care 
and support of the family. Many by carefulness 
and anxiety and numerous good works are endeav- 
oring to so develop that they will attain to God's 
grace and be saved. As well leave an infant in 
the field to grow up into the affections of the 



HOW FULL LIFE IS DEVELOPED. 105 



family. We are born in grace and grow in the 
same condition. Grace is the element in which 
we grow. Growth in grace is not an accumula- 
tion of goodness which we by human effort 
acquire. Many suppose this grace to be an 
increasing of their own piety, an addition to their 
own ability in service. Grace is the soil, rain, sun- 
shine, dew, atmosphere ; the divine conditions of 
the Christian's growth. Growth is the result of 
grace, makes growth not the reverse. Men try 
to grow in order to get grace, but grace is given 
us in order to grow. Grace is God's love expressed 
in his innumerable activities with a view to our 
highest cultivation. Some trees and plants only 
grow in certain soils, so the Christian will only 
flourish in the soil of grace. Out of it he withers 
and dies as a branch cut off from the living vine. 
The only getting he needs is to permit himself to 
be planted in grace. (John 15 : 1-6.) 

Where do works come in? In the 
WORKS, moralist's sense they are excluded. In 

the Christian sense they are outworks. 
According to Philippians 2: 12, 13, " Work out 
your own salvation with fear and trembling ; for 
it is God which worketh in you both to will and 
to do of his good pleasure." "Work out," sin 
"worked out" death in Paul. Faith "worked 
out" patience. Something within that so worked 
that it made a manifestation on the outside. 



106 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

" Your salvation," which is a life within, is to be 
so worked out that it will be seen on the outside. 
You may well fear and tremble lest you hinder 
this working by your sin and disobedience. Lest 
the wonderful life which you have within will not 
have a proper manifestation to the world, lest 
they cannot detect that you have been with Jesus. 
"God worketh within you," so that our works are 
a product of the inworking God. Our works are 
a revelation of what he is doing in us. God gives 
salvation, and he works within to make manifest 
the works of salvation. These are works of faith, 
produced by faith. The moralist has faith in 
works; the Christian, works of faith. And with- 
out such works faith, indeed, is dead. The mor- 
alist is working his own will and good pleasure. 
In the Christian it is God's will and good pleasure 
that is the motive of the working. 

In gathering cherries one summer from a 

DEAD tree on our side lawn, I found so many 

WORKS, dead branches that the fruit could only 

be gathered by great inconvenience. 
There was no life from the tree in those branches, 
and so their condition. The scripture speaks of 
"dead works." This is not lawlessness and crime, 
but the production of professed Christians who 
have not the spirit of Christ in them. Sometimes 
a church begins special revival effort because a 
neighboring denomination have in progress such 



HOW FULL LIFE IS DEVELOPED. 107 

meetings, and they are drawing the attention of 
people who might otherwise join their church, so 
the counter-effort is begun in jealousy, — "dead 
works." Sometimes a new church organization is 
begun, and a house built by a split from another 
body ; there has been difficulty, and the factions 
are going to outstrip each other in opposing or- 
ganizations, — '* dead works." Much Christian 
activity is carried on aside from, and not insti- 
gated by, Christ within. The list of such activi- 
ties is beyond computation. The sermon, social, 
entertainment, visit, invitation, not suggested by 
the Christ life within, is dead work. This appears 
on the Christian tree, in view of heaven, as dead 
branches. The scripture speaks of " repentance 
from dead works." The exhortation is also to 
" purge your conscience from dead works." (He- 
brews 6 : 1; 9: 14.) There are many Christian 
activities for which Christians are commending 
each other, that are so far from the thought of 
Christ that they need to be repented of. Yet 
upon these dead works the blessing of God is con- 
stantly asked. The church and the world stumble 
in not seeing these prayers answered. 



Io8 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 



X. 

HOW IS FULL LIFE TO BE USED. 

Someone will say that full life is to be 
DOING used in doing good. Another will say in 
GOOD? working for God. We answer, most em- 
phatically, No. Herein is a subtle temp- 
tation of Satan to get Christians to rush about in 
good doing and in professed working for God. 
We must go a step away from this to discover how 
full life is to be used. In doing and working, only 
certain classes of things and works are to be per- 
formed. Jesus says, "I do always those things 
which please him." In these words of Jesus we 
have the specified things that are to be done by a 
saved man, — things pleasing to God. Is not any 
and all good work pleasing to God? No, most 
assuredly not. It was a good work for the Israel- 
ites to sacrifice oxen to God, was it not? God 
commanded them to do so. But, under certain 
circumstances, it was a sin to take certain oxen 
and at a certain time sacrifice them. God told 
King Saul to utterly destroy them, but he thought 
that he would do a good work and keep the best 
of them to sacrifice to God. He was dethroned 
for doing what he thought was, and what was, 



HOW IS FULL LIFE TO BE USED? 109 

usually, a good work. Obedience is better than 
doing good. 

Jesus tells us that because God, who 
PLEASTNG sent him, was with him he therefore 

GOD. did always those things that pleased 

God. Full life is God with you, and 
out of that fullness you can do the things that are 
pleasing to God. Otherwise you may do good, 
but not the good that pleases God. The mission 
of Christ to the earth is expressed in his words : 
"I have glorified thee on the earth." How did 
he do this? "I have finished the work, — " any 
work, work anywhere, any good that needed 
doing? Listen: "I have finished the work that 
thou gavest me to do." He glorifies God by 
doing a God-given work, a work which thou 
gavest ME. Full life is to be used in pleasing 
God. To please self, and .to seek self-glory, is the 
great temptation. Yet nothing is so disappoint- 
ing as self-pleasing. Nothing so^ deceptive as 
self-seeking. A life filled with God is delivered 
from this. The glory of another is constantly in 
mind. Better than that, the pleasing of that other 
becomes the natural thing with the filled man. 

Paul, in First Corinthians, 10: 13, 

Living TO says: "Whether therefore ye eat 

God's GLORY, or drink, or whatever ye do, do 

all to the glory of God." Here 

we find self-pleasing set aside for God's glory. An 



IIO FULL LLFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

exalted motive is given for Christian activity, in 
the smallest and most common duties of life, even 
eating to his glory. Actions are important, in 
proportion to what they affect. A child plays 
with a string of buttons. Who cares? The child 
is being amused. A child places her finger upon 
an electric button, and thousands of tons of rock 
are blown from the river-bed. The importance of 
actions is not determined by their smallness or 
otherwise, but by their far-reaching influence. A 
man may practise penmanship and write his name 
a thousand times, but who cares? But, suppose 
he is the governor of the state, and places his 
name to a pardon for the convict, a man is set at 
liberty by the simple writing of a name. In Mat- 
thew 12: 36, Jesus says, " Every idle word that 
man shall speak, they shall give an account there- 
of in the day of judgment." Words are *impor- 
tant, because they reach on into eternity. "And 
whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these 
little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of 
a disciple, verily, I say unto you he shall in no 
wise lose his reward." Simple acts, when related 
to eternity, are important. This ennobles human 
life, and lifts it out of its littleness. So much 
smallness, so many little things to be done in the 
every-day drudgery, so much seen only by the 
doer. But to do them under the eyes of the 
president of the United States would make them 



HOW IS FULL LIFE TO BE USED? Ill 

grand ; how much more so if you were conscious 
that they particularly pleased him. Yet there is 
something better; every act is done under the eye 
of Almighty God, and to know that he took pleas- 
ure in these acts of yours would lift them forever 
out of the realm of the small into that of the great. 
What do we mean by working for 
REVEALING God's glory? What is his glory? 
GOD. Surely we cannot add to his essen- 
tial glory, but we can declare his 
glory, make it known. To make God known to 
the world in his true nature is to work to his glory. 
A man lives to God's glory when he reveals the 
true God in his life. Everywhere he goes God 
will be the better known and thought of for his 
having been there. All thy works praise thee, 
O God. The earth is full of the glory of God. 
Full spiritual life enables the Christian to do 
spontaneously what nature does — shows his div- 
inity and power. The great need of the world 
is to see God in his true nature, and when the 
Christian in his words and works thus makes him 
known he is living to God's glory. The sinful 
man does the opposite from this as he lives to 
the devil's glory in revealing or manifesting 
wickedness in his life. The glory of God is that 
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh revealing God, 
though he is one of the human race with us. 
The " upsidedownedness" of man is seen in the 
fact that he is ashamed of Jesus. 



112 FULL LIFE FOR EMPTY MEN. 

Paul says in Galatians 6: 14, "God forbid that 
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." There he sees revealed the mind and 
nature of God and he glories in that. The cross 
reveals God's view of sin, God's purpose for man, 
God's heart of love toward humanity. In his 
work of redemption Christ made God known to 
the w r orld in his true nature. The great motive 
of the Christ life was a revelation of God. What 
of our motives in Christian activity? Have we a 
show of our skill in mind rather than God's 
glory? Are we intent upon winning our own 
point rather than to please God? Have we our 
reputation in view rather than the true revealing 
of God's heart of love? Oh, for the exalted 
motive which Paul finds in the life and death of 
Christ! 

A man who sets out to glorify 

God himself ends in disgrace. One 

Glorifies Us. who sets out to glorify God is 

himself glorified. At every point 
where we glorify God he glorifies us. As in Mat- 
thew 10: 32, " Whosoever therefore shall confess 
me before men, him will I confess also before my 
Father which is in heaven." The counterpart in 
heaven. The church glorifies the character of 
Jesus here on earth, and what does he do for it 
in the coming dispensation? Ephesians 5 : 27, 
"That he might present it to himself a glorious 



■ 



HOW IS FULL LIFE TO BE USED? 113 

church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such 
thing; but that it should be holy and without 
blemish." As to our relationships with Christ 
here and in the future, read in Luke 22 : 28, 29, 
"Ye are they which have continued with me in 
my temptations. And I appoint unto you a 
kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me ; 
that ye may eat and drink in my kingdom, and 
sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 
So, also, in the parable of the pounds, in Luke 19, 
" Because thou hast been faithful in a very little 
be thou ruler over ten cities." The sphere of 
our glorifying God is while in these mortal 
bodies. So the apostle says, " Glorify God in 
our bodies." Also, " Christ shall be magnified 
ia my body." The bodies of Enoch, Elijah, and 
of James were taken to heaven, and so glorified. 
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the 
trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first." The whole creation is waiting for the 
redemption. These bodies shall be gathered, 
redeemed from sin and death, and made like 
unto his glorious body. " He that raised up 
Christ from the dead shall quicken our mortal 
bodies." The glorious resurrection is coming. 



300 



